


Metanoia

by KaedeRavensdale



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 'Dark Hunters', Conspiracies, Espionage, Extremely disfunctional family, Grisha was up to some shit in the basement again, Lycans, M/M, Military Police are Purebloods, More history is going to be in this than the orginal, Politics, The Hunters basically took the place of the Garrison, The Legion are Turned Ones/Halfbloods, This is a rewriting of an old work of mine by the same name, Vampire AU, VampireHunter!Eren, and it had a lot of issues, darklings - Freeform, murder plots, my first work on this site to be exact, so this one is much needed, vampire!levi, warfare, yeager is spelled jaeger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-03 04:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12741057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaedeRavensdale/pseuds/KaedeRavensdale
Summary: "Two sides of the same shitty coin."Eren, 5th rank graduate of the 104th division, is sent on a solo job to put down Levi Ackerman, a Pureblood Vampire with a reputation for killing Hunters. Things go south quickly and he finds himself at the Vampire's mercy, but it turns out that they have far more in common than either could have guessed. And that fact may just open a door to a better world for all of them.Provided they make it out the other side of the war alive.





	1. Flash Point

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so I mentioned in the tags and on a post on the old version that this is a rewriting of the original with a couple of changes but the plot is basically the same. I felt that it really needed it for a number of reasons.
> 
> I'm also going to be posting one of the songs a listened to while writing the chapters for no real reason. Some will have obvious connections to the chapter and some won't but if anyone's interested in music recs or something here's the first one - Adelitas Way "Notorious"

Eren’s black boots thudded against the wooden floorboards as he made his way down one of the many hallways in the Hunter Sect’s Rose city barracks. The seventeen year old brunet blinked green eyes against the bright sunlight spilling through the windows as he made his way to his superior’s office at a quick clip, attempting to keep the nervousness bubbling in the pit of his stomach at bay.

Hot headed or not he knew how to hold his tongue around authority and with both his sister and his best friend to keep him in check the 104th regiment’s number five graduate knew that he wasn’t about to walk into a dressing down. But if he hadn’t done anything wrong than why…?

There was no time for conjecture now. He’d arrived at the proper door.

The brunet paused only long enough to ensure that his uniform was in order before raising his fist and knocking on the thick wood. Greeted by his sergeant’s booming voice Eren stepped through the door. He snapped into a sharp salute; one fist thudding against his chest and the other against the small of his back.

“You called for me, Sir?”

“I did.” Sharp eyes, set deep into dark circles, almost seemed to measure him. “Sit, Jaeger. We need to discuss your next assignment.”

He was getting an assignment? Perfect! Eren had been dying of boredom just sitting around at the barracks waiting for something to happen. And he was the first member of the team that would be heading out to arrive for once in his life.

He did as he was told and lowered himself into the nearest chair. “Who am I being dispatched with?”

“You’re not being dispatched with anyone. I’m assigning you a solo mission.”

A solo mission? Finally! He’d begun to think it would be decades before he’d climbed the ranks enough to prove his metal to the point where he’d be deemed ready to go toe to toe with a parasite alone. As much as he enjoyed hunting in a pack, running the bastards into a corner and overwhelming them, the prospect of going one on one, fang against sword, was exhilarating.

Though some small part of him maintained the wherewithal to find it odd that a number five graduate would receive the job when numbers one, two and three were equally available to take it.

“I’m grateful for the chance to prove myself, but why me?” he asked. “Have Mikasa, Reiner and Berthold all turned it down?”

“I didn’t offer it to them, Jaeger. They’re above you with their test scores but are all too similar to what we’ve sent after him before. Your typical Hunter: cold and calculated on the job. Le Equarrisseur would pick them out in seconds and they’d be ripped apart.”

“Le Equarrisseur?” Eren felt his heart stop, then start up against at three times its normal pace. “T-The Butcher? You’re sending me after-.”

“An Ackerman. Kenny’s nephew. Military Police royalty. Yes, I am.” The massive wall of a man steepled his fingers in front of him. “He has the same hate for us that you do for their kind.  Has slaughtered thousands of Hunters in his time and tortured even more into insanity. Every team we sent after him never made it passed his coven. Every solo Hunter was defeated.” Shadis pulled a photograph from the file on his desk and handed it across the table to him. “This is Rivaille.”

Rather chagrinned to realize that his hand was shaking Eren took the photograph and felt his eyes go wide for an entirely different reason. Vampires were disgusting, vile, monstrous creatures which didn’t deserve to exist. He’d never once considered one of their awful kind to be anything close to beautiful and had never understood those who did.

Until now.

The only adjective he could think of to describe his new target was ‘striking’. Dressed in a fine black suit and crisp oxford with a cravat secured around his neck, the parasite’s hair was black as raven’s feathers and styled in a military undercut. Gunmetal blue eyes and skin like lacquered porcelain, well balanced features set into a blank expression which left the brunet feeling…uneasy.

Where the Hunter Sect had gotten a photograph which the Vampire had clearly posed for he hadn’t the slightest clue and wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to know.

This was the most dangerous thing he’d ever done thus far in his life, and that was saying quite a lot. He was really, truly, at risk of dying if he accepted this job. But he hadn’t been christened ‘Suicidal Bastard’ during training without reason.

Time to live up to the title.

He set the picture down on top of the desk. “When should I head out?”

“Immediately after you’ve gathered the necessary supplies to carry out the assignment. There’s no deadline; just focus on coming back alive.”

“I’ll do my best, Sir.” Eren said.

“I expect nothing less from a member of the 104th.” He said. “Dismissed.”

With another sharp salute the green eyed brunet retreated from the office of his superior and all but ran back to his quarters. Eren would have had to admit, if someone had stopped to ask him, that he didn’t know if what quickened his pace was excitement or fear.

Skidding through the doorway of the room he shared with Armin and Horseface, Eren snagged his duffle bag from underneath the bed and began throwing everything that he thought he might end up needing into it. Clothing. Toothbrush. Money. Holy water. Wooden stakes. Silver daggers. ODM gear and ample replacement blades, just in case he found himself in a situation where he would need it.

“Eren?” he almost hit the ceiling when his friend spoke from the doorway, turning to find Armin regarding him with concern. “You’re shaking. And…packing? What’s going on?”

“I’ve been given a job.” He said, leaning his weight against the top of the duffle bag in order to squash the contents down enough to zip it shut. “A solo job. I have to leave right away. Head into Sina and find some way to break into the Devil’s Thorn.”

“The Devil’s Thorn?” Eren winced when the blonde’s voice shot up a handful of octaves. “You’re being sent after the Military Police? Who?”

Reluctantly, he admitted “Rivaille.”

“The Butcher?” had the brunet himself not been so nervous he’d probably have marveled at just how high his best friend’s voice could go. “Eren! We’ve only been out of the academy for four years! Every Hunter that has been sent after Rivaille Ackerman is killed or worse! And they were top graduates! Ranked soldiers! What is Shadis thinking? You’re going to die!”

The taller male frowned at his panicking friend. “Thank you, Armin, for that resonant vote of confidence.” Finally succeeding in zipping his bag, Eren pulled the strap over his shoulder. “I’m sure that in my darkest hour I’ll be able to look back on this moment and find the strength to forge through.”

The blonde didn’t seem to register the other’s sass. “Does Mikasa know?”

Oh, shit. He hadn’t spared any thought to how his sister would react when she inevitably found out about this. Mikasa, were she to catch wind of what was going on before he had the chance to leave for Sina, would no doubt march him right back to their superior’s office and demand that the job be assigned to someone else. And trouble was she was scary enough whenever his safety was concerned that Shadis might actually comply!

Terrified as he admittedly was Eren refused to lose the once in a career chance that this job was. If he succeeded he’d go down in history as one of the heroes of the Hunter Sect, and with Kenny’s heir dead the Vampires’ hold over the world would become even more tenuous. He’d be one step closer to following through on the personal oath he’d taken, sworn over his parent’s graves when all three of them were still only children, to eradicate the monsters.

“…Yes?” it sounded utterly unconvincing. Given the chance he’d have kicked himself.

“She needs to know, Eren!”

“I know that, Armin! It’s not as if I wanted to hide this from her, I just,” he scratched at the back of his neck. “Let me get out of her reach, would you? Forget about Rivaille, if she reacts like you and I both know she will the _embarrassment_ will kill me!”

Eren couldn’t be certain, considering the fact that he wasn’t a mind reader, but he’d begun to think the little blonde may be possessed of the impression that there was something mentally…off with him. Maybe that was a more proper evaluation than any of them realized. “You really want this?”

He nodded, eyes on his boots. “This is my chance.”

Armin sighed, still looking incredibly uncomfortable with the entire proceeding. “I really hope you weren’t planning to go running off to Sina dressed in your uniform.”

Jerking in surprise Eren went back to madly scrambling around the room in search of clothing which was both clean and not yet shoved into his bag, beaming all the while. “Thanks, Armin!” After locating what he needed the brunet collapsed on his bed and wiggled out of his straps. Peeling off his uniform, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a t shirt instead. Static reduced his mop of hair to an even greater mess than it usually was. “I’ll find some way to keep in touch, but I’ve got to hurry if I want to catch the bus!”

Duffle bag full of clothes and weaponry bouncing at his back Eren tore out of his room, thundered down three flights of stairs and raced free of the barracks itself. Out into the sunshine and the balmy October mid-afternoon. Nerves receding, at least for a time, to be replaced by a joyous anticipation. This was it. This was the beginning for him and the beginning of the end for the fang-faced bastards.

Flashing his badge at the entrance of the bus station let him skip the metal detectors. The security guard had the audacity to roll his eyes at him but that was fine. The brunet didn’t care one way or the other, anymore, about the people who thought that the Hunter Sect was little more than a government funded joke. If people wanted to live in ignorance of the truth, believing Vampires were nothing but the myths of a bygone era until one came crashing through their wall and murdered their family in front of them than that was perfectly fine with him.

It was the sycophants that really rubbed him wrong. The spineless cowards who served the Military Police like cattle, gathering at the Devil’s Thorn and offering their necks to any Vampire that needed a place to stick their fangs. A lot like hookers, in a way, only with blood instead of sex. In his mind they were traitors who didn’t deserve to be thought of as human.

Unfortunately, posing as one of them would be his best bet at getting inside without risking undue scrutiny.

 _Grin and bear it._ Eren told himself, approaching the ticket counter. _Grin and bear it. Do everything you can to avoid a pair of fangs getting anywhere near you but don’t fight it if you have no choice. Keep focused on what’s really important. Why you’re there._

“Good afternoon. How can I help you today?” chirped the young woman stationed behind the window. All too aware that the shirt he had on might have been a smidge too tight around his arms and thereby a little bit of an invitation to the stare that she was giving him, he arranged his face into a smile.

“One ticket to Sina City, please. Stohess District if possible. If not, Ehrmich or Orvud wouldn’t be too far out of the way either.” He passed his card through the opening in the window.

“That will be $8.75 to Stohess.” She told him, card poised above the scanner. “That alright?”

“Perfect.” The brunet accepted the ticket, receipt and his card back and headed towards the row of seats nearby. Penned at the bottom of the thin strip of paper was, if he wasn’t mistaken, a phone number. _Wrong equipment. Nice try, though._

Not that he’d reasonably be able to get into the right type of relationship while he was still a Hunter. Not if he didn’t want to be stuck treating his boyfriend like a dirty little secret. How Krista and Ymir got away with it he didn’t have the slightest idea.

Scratch that, Eren knew exactly how. If angels existed, which he didn’t believe but that was beside the point, then Krista would be one of them. And Ymir simply gave no fucks. So there was that.

He slumped lower in the uncomfortable plastic chair and sighed, watching the second hand of the clock hung on the nearby wall tick away the hour. _Jesus, a geriatric in ankle weights could beat that thing in a race!_

Maybe it was irresponsible of him to want a relationship at this point in his life, while he should be devoting all his energy and concentration to the attack of the Vampires. Not only would it divide his attention away from his duties but it would also make a target of another person.

But was it wrong for him to want someone that was his? Preferably someone with piercing eyes and flawless skin, black hair and-fuck! Minus the fangs and disregarding the fact that he was at least five centuries his senior- he was into older men but damn that was a little much-Rivaille was exactly his type. Drop dead gorgeous!

And dropping dead might be exactly what he’d do if he didn’t get his head on straight, and fast! Even with the reckless reputation that he had Eren wasn’t an idiot and he knew that attempting to perform this assignment while distracted would only land him in the same situation that all of the Hunters before him had found themselves in.

The bus pulled into the station a handful of moments later with the high pitched shriek of wheels. Hissing, it knelt to the pavement and swung open its doors. With his duffle bag slung across his shoulder and ticket in hand, Eren stepped up onto the first stair.

 

* * *

 

 

Rain fell outside, sheeting down in curtains of grey and streaking the glass with distorting lines of water that shattered the midday sunlight into pearls of color. Joining the wind in clattered against the window and the wall which surrounded it, shaking the trees outside until their leaves were torn free in green clumps.  The weather was doing a damn good job of reflecting his mood.

Shitty.

And to make matters worse it was _that_ time of year again. The annual meeting at the Devil’s Thorn which the whole of the Military Police attended. And he, as Kenny’s ‘Heir’-what a joke that was, but that was a whole other subject all together and not something that would improve his mood in any shape or form-would be foremost among those expected to make an appearance. And remain there for the entire night.

 _Once a year._ Once a year too often. The raven dragged himself out of the armchair he’d curled up in and started towards his bedroom. _Once a year, and no more, that I have to go anywhere near that damned building._

The oiled hinges opened without even a sigh of metal and wood and he stepped into the room beyond. Absolutely spotless. Entirely, stringently, in order. Rivaille proceeded to his closet and pulled down the uniform he’d worn both two often and only rarely. He exchanged it for his clothing then turning to the wall length mirror to straighten his cravat and insure his hair lay correctly.

Grey-blue eyes blinked back at him, set into a mask of inexpression. One he’d worn for so long that he could no longer remove it, even while alone. So long that he no longer remembered what his own face truly looked like. He looked down at his hands, at their reflection and their physical form. Long fingers. Well-manicured nails. Pale skin.

After so long living the way that he had been the raven was truly, deeply shocked that his skin hadn’t been permanently stained red. It had started as hatred. As revenge. An act to dull the pain that he was in. To make the Hunters which had robbed him of his family pay for what they’d done. Then it had all crumbled away into a void of unfeeling which he’d tried to fill with fighting and killing. Then he’d realized that if a cure for the hollowness which had come to roost inside him like a murder of crows existed it didn’t lie at the end of the road he’d taken. The road that his uncle had all but thrown him down. Yet he kept walking it because he knew nothing else. Because it was too late to go back.

He’d fucked up. Bad.

Lithe fingers curled into powerful fists. Nails verging on biting into the skin of his palms. Knuckles standing out white against the strain. All the tension fled from his body when the knock came on his door, the impeccable control which had long since become his only defense slamming down around him like iron curtains. A blanket of ice to keep even those he liked and trusted at a comfortable distance.

He was broken. Shattered, even. But that made him sharp, not weak. Never weak.

“Yes, Petra?” it had been so long now that he could recognize them each by their footsteps alone.

“The car is ready, Sir.”

 _Marvelous._ Barely containing a heavy sigh, he gave a last few tugs to the cuffs of his jacket, the raven turned away from the mirror. “Thank you,” he said, “tell Gunter I’ll be down in a moment.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he got to Sina it was raining. Thunder storming, actually. And in the time it took Eren to get from the bus station to one of the cabs which idled on the curb he was soaked from head to toe.

“Where to?” the voice of the driver was gruff. The brunet made a poor attempt at pushing back his sopping fringe, blinking rain water from large green eyes and observing the man. There was no way for him to know if he was human or not, but it was a safe bet he was. Leeches generally considered themselves above jobs like this one.

“The nearest hotel.” He gave up on his hair, allowing it to flop back into place with a gentle splat. “I need a place to stay for the couple of days I’ll be in the city but this trip was a bit spontaneous so I didn’t make reservations anywhere. Is there a place you’d recommend?”

“There’s one not far from here. Not too expensive.” The yellow cab pulled away from the curb. “Shouldn’t be more than five minutes away.”

When they arrived at the hotel he paid the driver with cash and then booked a room using his card. The room that he received was fairly standard; clichéd floral print curtains and sheets, beige walls hung with random scenery paintings, a carpeted floor colored in a bizarre pattern on shapes and hues meant to conceal every bodily fluid in existence.

Shuddering, he made a mental note not to let his unshod feet touch the floor and then pulled dry clothes from his duffle bag and went to take a shower. Warming up and washing the rain off of his body.

Glad to be back in clothes that weren’t soaked through Eren went about the delicate process of concealing what he could under his clothing without making it obvious that he was armed. That done, he ensured that everything he’d be leaving in the room was in order then left the hotel behind. Nerves returning as he walked towards the city center.

Mitras, where no humans lived. Where the Devil’s Thorn was located. Where his job awaited him. Once again, that nervousness had returned. Roiling in his gut like superheated water. At least the sky had stopped pouring rain on his head, though the smell of ozone was still thick in the air and thunder snarled over head from time to time.

The building was in sight, now. A titanic structure of black stone, gothic and church like. Hung with the banners baring the horned horse of the Military Police. Eren grit his teeth and followed a young man in a uniform rather similar to a waiter’s in through a side door.

The realization that he was far from ‘dressed correctly’ hit him about the same moment that the small group all turned as one to stare at him.

Thinking on his feet, the brunet Hunter quickly explained himself with “um…I’m new. To this…whole thing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t realize that I was supposed to…dress up.”

Mild suspicion transformed into a sense of understanding. One of them, a woman with dark hair done up into a tight bun behind her head, greeted him and managed to dig up a spare uniform. It fit. Tightly.

Like a second skin.

Great. It was hard enough to body pack weaponry in loose fitting clothes, never mind while wearing something he’d bust the buttons off of if he bent over or moved too quickly. He’d have trouble squirreling away even a single dagger!

 _Nothing for it._ And there really wasn’t. He’d do whatever he had to. Had promised himself that much quite a long time before. Eren concealed the majority of the weaponry in the folds of the clothing that he’d been wearing before. _With any luck no one will come poking around my things and find any of this._

With nothing left to do and newly armed with a tray of empty wine glasses the connotation of which he didn’t want to think about Eren joined the others in filing out another door into the building at large.

The room was massive like a ballroom or event hall, the walls hung with yet more banners and the floors paved in laminated tile. Grey? Beige? In the bloody glow of the gothic chandelier danglingfrom the vaulted ceiling Eren couldn’t tell. Not that he was really paying attention. He had bigger problems than working out what color the floor was.

Every member of the Military Police present in Sina was there, the leaders among them distinguished by the uniforms they wore; strikingly similar to those of the Hunter Sect but without the straps needed for gear and, obviously, not wearing the Rose as their symbol. Was there a conference going on or something?

He’d never been around so many Vampires before and it was making him incredibly nervous.

The good news was that he would be certain to find his target here, provided he could see the forest for the trees. The question was, could he keep his nerve for long enough to maneuver the bastard into a position where he could put an end to him once and for all.

Already, he felt like he was being stared at. Probably because he _was_ being stared at, though most of the eyes were directed a great deal further southward than his neck. Only now that he’d been put into the situation did the Hunter realize he’d much rather have Vampires eyeing up his throat than his ass.

Damned tight pants.

Thankfully no one approached him looking to make one of the glasses he was carrying around not so empty anymore.

Ahead of him the crowd parted, making enough way for Eren to see the gathering of claw-foot furniture in the center of the room. Able to recognize Kenny Ackerman merely by the sight of his bowler hat he turned sharply on his heel and headed off in another direction. The brunet only made it a handful of steps before cold fingers-the touch delicate, like a spider feeling its way through the dark-made contact with the back of his hand. It was merely a tap, as light as it was brief, but the shock that zinged up his spine caused him to upset the tray.

Thankfully it was loud enough in the room that the sound of breaking glass didn’t travel very far.

“Jumpy, brat?” Rivaille observed the shards of glass with an unreadable expression. “Lucky for you I don’t drink communal trash, even if it is AB. I would like to know what the shitting hell you think you’re wearing though.” He folded his arms, causing his buttoned down shirt to flex across his chest. “Who told you this was a strip club?”

His target was…shorter than he expected. Blushing up to his ears from a mix of embarrassment and highly inconvenient attraction Eren tried two times to speak without success before finally managing to stammer “I-I’m new, Sir, and they didn’t have a uniform that would fit.”

Even the annoyed chuff that the smaller raven made was absurdly attractive. “They didn’t look hard enough. Typical of humans. Your kind can’t seem to accomplish anything without help.” He pivoted on his heel, crunching glass to dust beneath the sole of his boot, and started away at a brusque pace. “Come on, brat. I don’t have all night to deal with you.”

“I-?”

“There are more uniforms upstairs.” The Vampire cut him off, skillfully maneuvering through the crowd. “We need to get you into something less profane before one of these idiots gets grabby. You’re too damn pretty to be walking around looking like that; you’ll tempt someone into doing something they’ll get killed for.”

And cue the blush getting _even worse_! Not to mention, eww!  A Vampire had just indirectly admitted to finding him at least a little bit attractive. Even if he was his type and attractive himself, still gross. Definitely.

Damn, those back muscles though. And he talked about his uniform being- ** _focus, Jaeger!_**

This was perfect, Eren thought as he watched the little raven pull open a concealed door and start up the staircase behind it. They’d be alone up there. This would be the time to strike. To do what no other Hunter had managed to. To take down Rivaille Ackerman. Le Equarrisseur. The Butcher. The most notorious monster next to Kenny himself.

The hilt of the dagger was cold against his palm as he gripped it in his fist. Drawing the silver blade from where he’d had it hidden. Raising his hand and preparing to bury it right in the middle of his back. Right between his shoulders.

The dagger hit the wooden steps with a clatter, Eren biting through his tongue in an effort to silence his own scream. His broken wrist hung limp in grip of the Vampire who’d suddenly rounded on him without the slightest warning, once blue eyes now blazing blood red and slit pupiled in the dark.

“You Hunters never learn.” His fangs were visible when he spoke, razor sharp shards of milky white in the gloom. “Yet another stupid brat in a line of idiots, all sent in to die. I’m really getting sick of this shit.”

He released his wrist with one hand and drove the other into his chest. Ribs creaking under the blow which knocked the breath  out of him in a huff, Eren felt his feet leave the landing.

His body thudded against every step on the way down, spilling into a quaking pile of bruises and pain at the bottom. The raven footsteps deliberate as they thudded towards him. Closer and closer until he loomed over him, suddenly seeming thousands of feet tall.

“Still conscious?” even when they shifted back to blue his eyes still glowed. “Let’s fix that.”

With a final blow to the side of his head everything went black.


	2. Gargoyle to Icarus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this one is "Icarus" by Bastille

The Hunter was warm where his chest pressed into his shoulder, arms dangling along his back and legs in front of him as he lugged the unconscious brunet down the stairs into the manor’s cellar. He’d give the little brat credit where it was due: he’d managed to make of himself just the excuse Rivaille had needed to be allowed to leave that shit show early.

The door of the cell shrieked as it was opened, the chill and damp of the dungeon below his immaculate home making it impossible to prevent the hinges from rusting no matter how much oil he applied to them. The raven couldn’t help but flinch at the assault on his ears. The sight of the uneven floor, slimy walls and metal shackles were all too familiar to him by now.

He’d used this place all too often and for him it was filled with ghosts. Reminders of the bloodied past. Spiteful echoes that hissed at him and darted off into the shadows. Snarling phrases from the safety of the dark where they stood just out of reach. If Rivaille stopped and attempted to decode them, which by now he’d done on more than one occasion they’d call him far worse than what he claimed to seek revenge against and would remind him, ever so helpfully that his father would be disappointed.

In decades and years passed he’d have claimed he didn’t care and spoken truth. But now he wondered if his Garad hadn’t been right about Kenny’s mad crusade.

How could anything stop when each side kept avenging themselves against the other? Things would only end like that when one side succeeded in destroying the other, but if what had happened so far had taught him anything the raven had come to suspect that nothing but mutual destruction waited at the end of their road. And that a destroyed world would be all that was left behind.

He chained the Hunter’s left wrist and then, with more care, his broken right one; leaving the shackle a bit loose so that the full brunt of his weight would be directed away. With that finished, the raven took a few steps back to observe his would-be assassin.

A boy. A child not even twenty years of age. Wrists thin. Face still youthful with a thin layer of baby fat yet to be fully shed from around his cheeks.

“Didn’t they have anyone else they could have sent?” Rivaille couldn’t recall ever having seen a human, or a Vampire for that matter, quite like him. The sight of the boy called to mind myths of ancient cities who’s Gods were forged from solid gold. Wild hair. Wild eyes. Radiating life and passion, boundless conviction and confidence frothing over around him. “Why you, Icarus? Why send a child in to die?” It was his appearance that had drawn his eye, but it was the way he walked and held himself that had given him away. Not that of a sheep, like the other sycophants. Not that of a wolf, like him.

And that meant he had to be a sheepdog. A Hunter.

“Flew too close to the sun, didn’t you brat? No guardian angel to pull you back before your wings burned off?” the brunet shifted in his sleep, the chains which bound him rattling softly in the half-dark. “Well, fortunately enough, there was a gargoyle standing in the right place to catch your ass before you hit the ground.”

Rivaille doubted that the boy would consider his lot to be ‘fortunate’ by any stretch of the imagination. But, he supposed, that came with the territory of having a redemption seeking demon watching your back.

“Rest up while you can. You’ll need it once my uncle gets here.” There’d be no getting around drawing blood once Kenny came and stuck his nose into matters. In order to keep the brunet out of a situation where he really would be ripped limb from limb he’d have to do the very thing he’d grown so sick of. At least until he could come up with something else. Even if that solution was as badly thought out as releasing him back into the wild.

He just couldn’t do this anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

“Have either of you seen Eren?”

Annie and Sasha both looked up at her, pausing mid-way through their morning ritual of donning their uniforms and making themselves presentable to stare.

“Not since yesterday.” The icy blonde told her before turning back to what she’d been doing.

“I haven’t either; he wasn’t at dinner.” Sasha swung her legs off of the end of her bed. “I was looking for him last night, actually. He’s normally not too opposed to slipping me what he isn’t going to eat.”

Despite her mounting concern, the ravenette couldn’t help but roll her charcoal eyes. “So all someone has to do to get you to keep tabs on them is offer you a daily tribute of a portion of their food?”

The brunet’s face lit up a bright shade of red and she hung her head, straightening the jacket of her uniform. “Oh, come on Mikasa! The portions here are criminal!”

“The only portion size you wouldn’t consider ‘criminal’ is if they gave you the entire table.” Annie tugged on her sleeves, pulling them into proper place.

“You guys are so mean!” Securing her hair into its usual ponytail Sasha headed towards the door of their room. “I’m going down to breakfast!”

She disappeared around the corner.

“He may have just been out last night.” The blonde freed the hood of the sweat shirt she wore beneath her uniform from where it had become caught against the collar of her jacket. “We both know how he can get when he’s bored. Training can only keep Eren occupied for so long before he goes looking for something else to keep his attention; he can’t have gone far.”

“You’re right.” And she was, Mikasa knew. “Armin and Jean should know where he is; they share a room with him.” The ravenette wound the soft red scarf her brother had given her years ago, when he’d rescued her from those things and taken her in, tighter around her neck. “If anyone knows where Eren’s run off to it’ll be one of them.”

She led the way out of their room with the blonde not far behind. At this point in the morning the entire population of the Rose City barracks were either still sleeping or had gathered in the dining hall, and as such they found themselves alone while they navigated the halls.

The doors of the dining hall were propped open, the many windows set high on the walls spilling copious amounts of morning sunlight into the room below. Mikasa’s eyes immediately went to the table where the members of the 104th gathered every morning, searching for the familiar tan skin and brown mop that marked her brother from the crowd. When she didn’t find it her heart dropped.

“He could still be sleeping.” Annie stepped around her, headed off to join Bertold and Reiner at their end of the table. “Ask Arlert and Kirstein before you start to panic.”

Nodding, Mikasa made her way to the opposite end of the table and sat down between Jean and Armin. Jean’s face immediately lit up in a blush but more of her attention was drawn by Armin immediately averting his eyes. It was an odd action which seemed to scream guilt, though about what she wasn’t sure.

“Have either of you seen Eren? The last time that I saw him was yesterday morning.” She said. “He wasn’t at dinner. I’m getting worried.”

“Oh, of course this is about Jaeger!” Jean crossed his arms, amber eyes resentful. “Do you think about anything else, Ackerman, or is your entire thought process devoted to being that suicidal bastard’s shadow?”

“My brother and I are close; we’re all the family that either of us has left. Is that wrong?”

“Well, I haven’t seen him. He wasn’t at dinner and he didn’t come back to the room either.” He said.

Charcoal eyes fell on the smaller blonde who was now making a concerted effort not to meet her gaze. “Armin?”

“Mikasa, I’m sorry, but he made me promise not to tell you until he’d had a chance to get far enough away from Rose that you couldn’t stop him.” He said it a little bit louder than he’d meant to and drew the attention of the entire table by consequence. “Shadis assigned him a solo job around mid-afternoon yesterday; I found him packing. Eren should be well on his way to Sina by now, if he hasn’t arrived there already.”

“A solo mission?” Reiner called from the far end of the table. “The lucky bastard! Why didn’t we get the offer first, though? He was fifth.”

“You won’t be so envious once you hear who it was they sent him after.” Armin said. In a quieter voice, eyes falling to the plate in front of him, he elaborated “the Butcher.”

Though the rest of the mess hall remained as raucously loud as ever at their table it was as if a void of silence had fallen over the area. So thick that it was like breathing in liquid cement. A pin could have fallen a mile away and they’d all have heard it.

“I was going to say that Eren can handle his assignment,” Bertold was quaking in his seat now and sweating profusely, “but never mind. No one’s ever gone after Rivaille and survived with their minds intact.”

“He’ll get his head served to him on a silver platter.” Ymir picked at his food.

The cutlery and plates lining the table they sat at rattled as she slammed her hands down, a few of the nearest cups spilling juice and milk across the wood. The bench that Mikasa had been sitting on toppled with a crash which drew the attention of a number of Hunters from surrounding tables, but they all looked away quickly on catching sight of the look in her eyes.

“We have to go after him!”

“Woah, Mikasa, are you insane?” Connie looked horrified by the mere suggestion.

“Rushing after him would only make things worse, Ackerman. Deep down I think you know that.” Annie’s blue eyes calmly held the ravenette’s burning gaze. “He’s undercover, and staying unconnected to the Rose is the only chance that Eren has. We run after him, we’ll be caught and that will give him away. Do you really want to be the one responsible for a Vampire ripping your brother’s head off?”

Mikasa narrowed her eyes, but a moment later looked away. “I can’t stand not knowing. Losing him…I couldn’t handle it if Eren were to die.”

She wanted to run to wherever he’d gone to and protect him. To pay him back the debt she owed for all he’d done for her since they were children. But even more than that she wanted to do everything in her power to keep him safe and if that meant doing nothing than she’d force herself to sit by and wait.

Pushing her unfinished plate towards Sasha, Mikasa headed for the dining hall doors leaving her bench still lying on the floor.

 _Eren Jaeger, what the hell were you thinking running off like this?_ The answer to that question was probably much simpler than she would have liked: he hadn’t been. She momentarily considered punching one of the solid stone walls simply as a release valve for the pressure of her own frustration, but then discarded the idea.  Broken fingers wouldn’t help anyone.

She charted a course back towards her room and collapsing onto her bed. Lifting the framed picture which stood posted on the nightstand, taken not long after his family had brought her into their home. In the aftermath of that awful night, the first time she’d lost everything, she’d found a new family.

_“What were you thinking, Eren! I told you to go wait at the base of the mountain!” She watched from her place at the edge of the circle of light thrown out by the small fire as the vaguely familiar man held his son by the shoulders, eyes hard and voice stern. The brunet didn’t seem overly pleased by the actions of his parent, and the emeralds Mikasa had seen both blazing with righteous fury and lit with a soft kindness were now smoldering with a muted sort of exasperation that would probably put wrinkles on his face when he was older. “You’re a child! Those were Pureblood Vampires; do you have any idea how much danger you’ve put yourself in?”_

_“I don’t care what they were, dad! If we had waited around for the Hunters to arrive she’d be dead! I just wanted to save her!” He turned his head away, from his father and from her, and looked out towards the dark forest behind them. Not before she’d caught sight of the slightest protrusion of his lower lip. He was pouting._

_The man, Grisha was his name if she recalled correctly, sighed heavily before he straightened up and turned towards her. “Do you remember me, Mikasa? We met a few times when you were younger.”_

_“Dr. Jaeger.” The jacket he’d given her was five sizes too big for her small frame and did little to assist her dress in fighting off the winter chill. “It’s cold out. Which direction do I take?” her eyes burned but Mikasa fought against the urge to tear up. Crying wouldn’t do her any good so it was better to conserve the energy. “I have nowhere to go back to.”_

_The crack of a twig breaking from right in front of her snapped her eyes upwards only for her vision to be obscured by a length of soft red fabric. A scarf. His scarf. The boy, Eren, was terrible at wrapping them-probably hadn’t put his on himself-but that didn’t matter. It was warm. And smelled like him: like the forest, and wood smoke and sunlight._

_“We’re not going to let you go walking off alone, Mikasa.” He excavated her hand from the copious fabric and gently pulled it free. His fingers were calloused and his grip was light. “You’re going to come and live with us, now.” His smile out shone the flickering fire. “Mom always wanted a daughter.”_

_One month._ She thought, setting the picture back aside. _If I don’t hear from him in one month, I’m going in after my brother._

 

* * *

 

 

His broken wrist was killing him and he was frozen to the bone, the God damned too tight uniform that he was still dressed in was soaked through from the dampness in the air to the point where it stuck uncomfortably to his chest and sides. From head to toe Eren’s entire body ached, bruises blooming purple-yellow across his tan skin like some sort of horrible flower. Cautious, the brunet cracked one eye open and looked around at his new surroundings.

A cage. Or a cell. Likely in some sort of dungeon-basement doubtlessly built for the sole purpose of holding captured Hunters prisoner. There were shackles on his wrists that bound his hands above his head and he’d been relieved of everything which could even be mcgyvered into a weapon.

At least he wasn’t already dead. Though Eren had no way of knowing, yet, whether that was the silver lining to his situation or just confirmation that he was well and truly fucked.

It looked like it wouldn’t be all that much longer before he learned because he wasn’t alone. Outside of his cell, leaning against the opposite wall and still dressed in his uniform, was Rivaille. His grey-blue eyes were watching him with an unwavering gaze which seemed to hold some sort of emotion, but quickly went blank when he realized the brunet was awake.

If Eren hadn’t known any better he might have labeled what he’d seen as pity. But he did know better. Monsters like the thing outside his cage weren’t capable of such things, regardless of the fact that they went around wearing human faces.

The Vampire pushed himself away from the wall and approached the cell, coiling lithe pale fingers around one of the bars. Despite his size his presence was absolutely massive and the way he stood, hips cocked as he leaned towards him, captured Eren’s attention like a powerful magnet.

“Morning, Icarus.” If he lived through this shit with his mind intact the brunet would protest until he was blue in the face that it was the cold of the cell and not the Vampire’s voice that made him shiver. “Sleep well?”

Confused, Eren looked around the cell again. Just to make sure that he really was alone. “Who the hell is Icarus?”

“A figure of Greek myth. The son of the Inventor Daedalus who, on wings of wax and bird feathers, flew too close to the sun and fell to his death.”

Grizzly. “That’s not my name.” He growled.

“I figured not. But look at the situation and tell me that you’re not a scarecrow for the boy.”

“And what would you be? The sun?” Grandiose bastard.

When Rivaille smiled Eren got an uninhibited view of his fangs. “No, Hunter, I’m not the sun.” He said. “I’m the ground.”

The shriek of a door from above them made the Vampire hiss and silenced the brunet’s response. Footsteps drew towards them with the thudding clomp of boots against wet stone. Moments later Eren caught sight of a figure that made his blood run cold.

Kenny leered from below the rim of his bowler hat. “You haven’t started in on him yet, Rivaille? That’s unlike you.” He looked at the other. “Going soft like your father?”

Rivaille’s lip twitched, as if attempting to curl upwards into a snarl, but the raven held it in. “I had better things to do last night then thrash a bound, unconscious human. It’s boring when they’re not aware enough to scream.”

“Well, ‘he’s aware enough to scream’ now. So what are you waiting for?”

“Nothing, now that you’ve found the time to make an appearance.” The door of the cell shrieked as he pulled it open. “I figured that you’d enjoy the show.”

 _Oh, dear Lord. Here it comes._ The brunet braced for a blow, not knowing from which direction it would come. _Brace. Batten down. With all your training, you’re strong enough to get through this!_

Eren had first killed Vampires when he was nine, on the night that he’d rescued his sister from the murderers of her parents. He’d survived training at the academy. Had risen to become fifth among the greatest regiment the Rose had ever seen. Had fought with at least a hundred Vampires by now.

Rivaille was beyond out of his league. And no matter how much he wished otherwise, Eren quickly learned that he _was not prepared._

Light exploded behind his eyes when the raven’s boot clad foot slammed into the side of his head. The blow threw him against his chains. Blood flew from his mouth and a tooth, dislodged from its proper place by the unbelievable force flew across the cell.

It felt like getting run over by a train. Eren couldn’t breathe and didn’t get a chance to try to catch his breath before another blow-a knee to the face this time-landed. At first it had only been a couple drops of blood knocked loose along with the dislodged tooth but now the Hunter found himself choking on it. Blood pouring from both his mouth and his broken nose.

Rivaille’s claws, long and sharp, cut into his scalp as the Vampire grabbed him by the hair and yanked him forward. More blows landing against his waist and chest. Ribs creaking. Skin bruising and breaking.

By the time he was finished with him Eren was left hanging limp in his chains, feeling like a sack of jelly and broken bone bits. In so much pain that he wasn’t even sure he could feel it anymore. His ears were ringing; the only other sound that he could hear aside from the shrieking in the back of his head was his own ragged breathing.

Had a broken rib punctured one of his lungs? Was he going to die? Drown in his own blood? Was this how it was going to end? What about his sister? He hadn’t spoken to her before he’d left.

What would she do when word of his death got back to her? Come rushing after Rivaille in a doomed effort to avenge him? End up the same way?

 _I shouldn’t have accepted this job._ Eren’s last coherent thought as his vision started going dark. _I wasn’t ready._

 

* * *

 

 

Rivaille had to resist the urge to slam the front door of the house after his uncle, in desperate need of a shower to get all of the blood and guilt over what he’d done off of his skin. After taking a moment to stare down at his hand, nails edged in scarlet and skin splashed crimson, the raven twitched the turn lock into place and headed towards the master bath. Dropping his badly stained uniform into a pile outside of the door of the bathroom, trusting that one of the others would come by to take it in due time, he stepped under the spray before it had the chance to warm up.

Cold water soaked his hair through and splattered against his chest. Running down a pale topography of chorded muscles and raised scars. Clearing away the blood. It spiraled, pink tinted, down the gurgling drain but did nothing to wash away what he’d done to the gilded Hunter now swollen black and blue downstairs.

Even after shutting off the water with a metallic clunk Rivaille still stood in the shower. Listening to the silvered droplets fall from the spigot and his sopping fringe onto the tiled floor; a muted pattern of _tock! tock! tock!_ and staring down the drain.

Dark and hollow. A lot like he was.

A warm towel and set of clean clothes-doubtless curtesy of Petra-awaited him when he finally stepped free. Drying himself and redressing, the raven left the bathroom and headed for his study. Excavating that ages old package from where he’d thrown it merely minutes after receiving it with the intent that the box and whatever its contents might be to be forgotten, he sat down behind his desk.

He could still remember the day that he’d received it from his other uncle, Alias. When he’d confessed to him that he’d committed the Military Police’s highest sin. Alias had made it nine years after the raven had turned him in before Reiss’ men had found him, his human wife and their Darkling child.

He regretted having done it, now. Alias had been far more like his father than Kenny, had attempted to take him in after he’d been rescued from the streets, and would have been someone to turn to in this his time of flailing blindly in the dark. But now, because of his own actions, Rivaille found himself alone. Hoping that the contents of a half-century old box might hold some answers.

Freeing the twine which bound it and pulling off the lid, he peered inside. It contained one thing, rectangular and wrapped in paper. Taped to the top was a yellowed note in his uncle’s handwriting.

‘Rivaille,

Your father suspected something like what happened would occur soon, given his stance against Kenny and the direction in which he’s taken our people. Garad left this with me to give to you when the time came that you were old enough to understand and competently choose your own path. With any luck, this information may at least keep you from going the same way that your father has.’

The raven set the note aside and lifted the object out of the box. Ripping away the butcher paper in an effort to reveal what he’d expected to find, left to him by his father, but a hard cover book-a diary to be exact-wasn’t it.

When he moved to open it an envelope dropped onto the desk with a soft clatter. Thick, fine parchment of the type you just couldn’t find anymore. Yellowed even more than the note on the book had been. Rivaille picked it up and, carefully so as not to risk destroying it, removed the folded letter from inside. The old parchment creaked quietly as the creases were opened, revealing the neat flowing lines of his father’s handwriting.

‘My son,’ read the introductory address. Pale eyes scanned down the letter, putting behind them both the encouragements and reassurances of a parent and warnings of things he’d already known or at least suspected about the Military Police and the war and Kenny. But then he got to the end of what may well have been his father’s last correspondence and the letter dropped once more onto the desk.

His hands were shaking and his fingers felt numb.

How?

Why?

Of course!

Rivaille had no doubt that the Hunter currently chained up downstairs would be just about as pleased to learn of this as he was.


	3. Double Dealing(The Rose's Thorns)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this one is 3 Doors Down "Away from the Sun"

‘Out of body experience’ would be the best term with which one could describe the situation in which Eren now found himself. Trapped somewhere in the mushy grey twilight halfway between awake and unconscious he watched the two Vampires come down the stairs and stop outside of his cell to stare at him, as if he were some exotic animal chained up in a zoo.

‘An animal’ was probably about the equivalent of what they saw him as, and what made matters worse was the fact that he couldn’t spite them for it given that the feeling was mutual. To him, they were nothing but rabid dogs that needed to be put down. Disease ridden mosquitos that needed to be squashed.

Worse, even.

With nothing better to do than hang there, afflicted with a detached sort of pain which emanated from countless wounds he felt only vaguely-though he had little doubt that that would change once he was properly conscious-Eren focused his attention on the pair of blood suckers outside of his cell.

One of them was a woman. Short, shorter than Rivaille, at around 5’1” with ginger hair and amber eyes. She wore a pale blue shirt, long sleeved and button down, and a knee length skirt with heels. Her company was a man, similarly dressed in a white shirt and slacks. Taller, at 5’6”, with wavy brown hair and small hazel eyes. Between his haircut, expression and the cravat that he wore Eren couldn’t help but think he looked remarkably similar to the Vampire he’d been sent in to put an end to.

“Oh,” the woman stepped a bit closer, with that same look he’d seen briefly in the raven’s eyes shining in her amber gaze. Eren felt like he was losing his mind. “He didn’t hold back at all!”

“Of course he didn’t. Kenny would have picked up on it immediately.” The man stuck out his tongue. “If you ask me, the Hunter brat had it coming.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed and, without warning, she kicked her companion in the shin. Taken by surprise, the man bit through his tongue. “Jesus, Petra!”

“ _You_ had _that_ coming!”

More footsteps on the stairs heralded the approach of others before a male voice said “we leave them alone for five minutes and come back to Petra mauling him.”

“Are you really surprised, Eld?” asked another male voice. “Oluo and Petra have never exactly gotten along. Though not for Bosard’s lack of making an effort to go sweet on her.”

The two men came into sight a moment later, bearing between them what looked bizarrely like a king-sized bed. The one at the head of the bed, Eld, had brown eyes and blonde hair. The other, as of yet unnamed in Eren’s mind, was black haired with dark eyes.

Petra rounded on him, the expression on her face resonantly unimpressed. “Gunther!”

“Calm down, tiger woman.” Eld chuckled as he and Gunther set the bed down with the clang of burnished iron. “It’s better we don’t risk waking the Hunter up before we have to. Treating his injuries will be difficult enough without him spitting and clawing at us.”

“He’s a kid, Jinn.” Oluo’s voice was muffled by his efforts to stop the bleeding. “Don’t make him out to be more dangerous than he is.”

“Only if you make him out to be less dangerous than he is.” He said. “Yes, he’s a kind but we can’t forget that his age doesn’t cancel out the fact that the Rose sent him in to kill Rivaille. Alone. That should be more than enough proof that he’s dangerous and shouldn’t be treated recklessly.”

“I think a more pressing concern is how we’re going to get this bed in through that door.” Gunther said, eyeing the height and width of the cell door. “To me, this bares remarkable similarity to attempting to jam a square shaped block into a star shaped hole.”

Petra squeezed around the blonde to join Gunther in sizing up the bed and the door. After a drawn out moment of silence she said “you do realized that that bed comes apart, don’t you?”

All three men exchanged glances before Eld ventured a less than confident “…yes?”

Clearly not buying it, Petra sighed and picked up the mattress. The ease at which such a small slight woman could pick up an object so cumbersome and heavy was something Eren found more than a little bit disturbing. “Let’s start by getting this out of the way.” She leaned the mattress vertically against the wall while the three men pulled the frame apart.

The door was opened again with the brief jingle of keys and the pieces of the bed were brought in and reassembled inside the cell. The mattress dropped down onto the frame with a metallic thud.

Why had they brought in a bed? Was he going to be tied down to that, next? Tortured more? Or worse? Eren’s mind spun as his shackles were unlocked and he was lifted onto the mattress.

Soft. Warm. And clean. The brunet hadn’t realized that he’d been shivering violently until he found himself adrift in plush fabric.

“Well, Petra, it’s your territory from here.” He was now too distracted to competently differentiate their voices. “What are you going to do about the changes of clothes?”

“I’ll leave them on the foot of the bed for him when he wakes up; we don’t want to do anymore damage and I doubt he’d be comfortable being undressed by strangers.” She freed him from the torn, bloodied and barely fitting shirt. Cold fingers carefully probed along the cuts and bruises in search of broken bones. “I doubt they’ll be a perfect fit, Rivaille is about three inches shorter than him and a bit wider in the shoulders, but they’ll be better than what he’s wearing now.”

A grunt of affirmation. “Here’s the kit.” Through his peripheral vision Eren caught sight of a white first aid box being passed to the woman.

“Thank you.” The plastic clatter of the lid being popped was followed by a crackling wrapper. “His wrist has set wrong. I’ll have to break it again before I put on the splint or there’s a risk he’ll lose partial motion in his hand.”

“That could wake him up. Are you sure you want to do that?”

“He’s alone, outnumbered and has so many sprains and bruises that I’d be shocked he could sit up let alone stand.” Her touch was oddly delicate when she picked up his wrist but Eren wasn’t fooled. He knew full well the amount of strength that Vampires possessed. “Rivaille wouldn’t be pleased if we were to leave the task of tending to ‘Icarus’ half-finished.”

Force was expertly applied to his wrist and the snap of bone was soon heard. Eren felt his body give a weak jerk, a dull pain lancing through him as the break was rotated into the proper position and bound there with stiff leather and gauze.

“It’s not usual for him to name his prisoners.”

“He’s been referring to him as a ‘guest’ Oluo.”

“We keep ‘guests’ in the cellar now, do we?”

“Until some way to legally keep him upstairs and alive can be found we don’t have a choice.” Petra set his now wrapped wrist down again. “If he’s seen wandering around and it gets back to Kenny things won’t end well. Not to mention the risk of him running back to Rose city first chance he gets.”

“Or offing someone with a spoon.”

“Enough out of you!” She left the sphere of his vision with the clatter of the closing kit, her footsteps retreating towards the door. “The sarcasm isn’t necessary.”

The door of the cell shrieked shut, leaving Eren once more alone in the cold cell. Surrounded by warmth and comfort provided by the overly squashy bed and unable to control his body in any meaningful capacity the brunet was left with little choice but to allow himself to drift back down into impenetrable darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

The door of the Porsche banged shut behind him, finger finding the lock button emblazoned on the key fob as more of an afterthought than any real concerted effort to defend his property from those that might want to steal it. Everyone in Mitras knew which car was _his_ car, even if he was normally driven from place to place by Gunther, and subsequently were painfully aware not to touch it.

The tail lights flashed red as the liquid onyx car emitted a single high pitched squawk. Rivaille shoved the keys back into the pocket of his slacks and proceeded across the near to empty lot towards the towering building.

Complete with crenulated towers and half eroded, leering gargoyles Mitras City Library looked far more like a castle than any true depository of books and knowledge. Were he to be honest the raven would be forced to admit that this place was high up on his list of locations in the city which he hated enough to avoid like the plague. Not as high up as such places as the Devil’s Thorn or his uncle’s home but still high up none the less.

If only he didn’t have to be here. But no. He had to have this shitty guilt which had coaxed him into reading that damned letter which revealed the entire shit show of a conspiracy and Rivaille didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about all of this.

Until he figured that out, the raven would settle for decidedly annoyed but not in any way surprised.

It was all so goddamned obvious, and if he’d had any less control over his emotions than he did Rivaille would have rallied his coven and proceeded to make an honest effort to rip his uncle’s head off. Everything he’d lost, everything he’d been through, everything he’d suffered all led back to him. And then he’d turned around and prevented him from healing both mentally and emotionally. Had allowed the embers of hatred to scour him out until his heart had been reduced to a blackened husk, and then had turned him into a weapon.

Utterly destroying his father’s legacy by turning his son against the humans Garad had wanted to protect.

He had no way of knowing for precisely how long the highest members of the Rose had been in Kenny’s pocket and which of their victims had been ordered assassinations as opposed to the targets of the ignorant foot soldiers who truly thought the Hunter sect’s intention was to wipe out the Vampires.

Rivaille’s mind strayed back to blazing emerald eyes and golden skin. Young. Too young. What the living hell had that boy very nearly died for? And what about those who had come before him in that cell? What about the Parisian Hunters who had killed his family? Were they accomplice to all of it or had they merely been following orders? The blind leading the blind? If they had, could he in good conscious continue to cling to the ashes of his hatred?

Could he bring himself to let them slip through his fingers?

Again, the image of those damned eyes assaulted him. Greener than the world’s most precious emeralds and brimming over with determination and hate, looking into them felt like looking into a mirror at his own reflection. When he was a bit younger, perhaps, and had yet to grow so jaded. He knew, then, that the brunet had some version of the same story Rivaille had lived through centuries before. “I intend to fashion you a second set of wings, Icarus.” He mounted the first of many steps leading up to the library’s doors. “What you do with them is up to you.”

Were the world in any way kind, the boy would use them to soar just high enough to still be safe. Would perhaps realize that he was merely being used and free himself. Move on to something bigger and have a life which truly meant something.

A small, traitorous part of him hoped his Icarus would then come back to roost. That he would stay with him. Would want to. Would want _him_.

Grimacing, the raven crested the staircase and did his best to quash the traitorous affection-was that really what it was?-before it could fester and spread. Any relationship with a human which wasn’t that of predator and prey was highly illegal. Punishable by death. Even if the risk of producing a Darkling child was nonexistent between two males such a thing was a slight against the Night Race which wasn’t to be tolerated.

The closest thing that human society had to such an offense was bestiality. Though it would have been a far more accurate fit if the punishment for bestiality was being ripped apart. And not just the offender, often times, but their entire coven. Especially if they were the head of it.

Even closed off as he was Rivaille wasn’t entirely without a heart. Shriveled and dead as it may have been, he was still able to care for those close to him. And care fiercely. He refused to be in any way responsible for the deaths of those who worked under him. So even if it was a futile battle, in the end, to deny his burgeoning feelings he’d fight tooth and nail not to eat of the forbidden fruit.

A rather apt metaphor considering the shared ancestors of both humanity and the Night Race and the crime that had gotten them expelled from paradise.

The scandal of a son of Cain and a son of Able consorting in such a manner, especially if one of them was an Ackerman and the supposed next in like to take the helm of the Military Police and the other was a Hunter, was something he didn’t want to imagine.

 _No! Stop thinking about that; dwelling on the matter isn’t going to help you resist!_ Shaking himself off and dragging his mind rather forcefully back onto the proper path Rivaille pushed the double doors open and proceeded into the library. _Focus on what you’re here for and nothing else. Death records. General histories. You have shit elbow deep to sift through and don’t have the time to think of other things!_

If he found anything truly workable it’d be a fucking miracle. He only had the vaguest idea where to start, little doubt about the fact that this effort would very quickly transform into something far more similar to putting together a puzzle than he would have liked and all but a certainty that this pursuit would devour the vast majority of his time for the foreseeable future.

And perhaps that was for the best. He needed a distraction desperately or he’d run the risk of sticking his hand into the blazing fire that was his Icarus. And he knew that if he did so it would consume the both.

Nothing but charred bones would remain.

 _Damn it all!_ Rivaille resisted the urge to hiss and show his fangs, pulling the first of a small mountain of sources from the shelves. _I’m thinking about the Hunter brat **again**!_

Retreating to the nearest unoccupied table with a teetering pile of tomes at least twice his height in his arms, the raven dropped them onto the wood. They landed with a thud, wheezing pathetic clouds of dust and slumping across the length of the table. A couple of them even had the audacity to topple off the far end onto the floor. He huffed in annoyance and retrieved them before sitting  down and peeling open the cover of the first book to hand.

The death registry which covered the years up to and including 1401, when the Military Police had first formed under Kenny in the wake of the destruction wrought by Howlpack Jaeger and the subsequent extermination of both the Werewolves and their more intelligent Lycan descendants. He had reason to suspect that the links between the Rose and his uncle hadn’t been present, or at least hadn’t been strong, during that time given the tenuous alliance between the Hunters and the Howlpack which had formed  but it was a good a place to start as any. And the murder of his family had taken place in 1515 so he knew that, by then, things had solidified between them if the contents of that letter had been true. Not that he had reason to think they hadn’t been.

Which left him with an approximately 114 year sized haystack to root through in search of a needle. Or, rather, a smoking gun. And though that was admittedly a great deal better than the nebulous ‘some point in history’ he might have otherwise been dealing with it still left the raven possessed of a powerful urge to beat his head against the table in front of him until his skull caved in.

Rivaille spent hours at that library. Pouring over books until his eyes felt so strained he wanted to blind himself with his claws. Yet all he felt like he’d successfully managed was chasing his tail. There was something missing, something crucial yet small which rose above him like a daunting wall and ahead like a bottomless abyss. One piece of information which would all but surely unlock everything.

Problem was, he hadn’t for the life of him the slightest idea what that information was or where he might be able to find it.

He was on the verge of flipping the table in an effort to release a modicum of his pent up frustration when a shadow fell over him. Looking up, he found himself confronted with just one of any number of people he didn’t want to have to deal with.

“Reiss.” There was more than a bit of a growl in his voice as he rose from his chair, beginning to gather up his notes and all the books he’d been using.

“Rivaille.” This man was far too close to his uncle for his comfort. Luckily, he had enough control over his emotions at least so far as he allowed them to show on his face to avoid attracting undue attention. “Odd seeing you here. Doing a spot of reading?” he snatched up one of the books before the smaller male could act to stop him. “Don’t you have a private library in that compound of yours? It’s rather unusual to see you out in public more than once a year.”

“Being antisocial has become a crime, has it?” he snatched the book back. “And I do have a library of my own but I found the need to alleviate the oppressive boredom of immortality by looking through some records. Idly seeking patterns. Something to occupy my mind other than cleaning the manor; the amount of bleach I’ve used in the kitchen caused the tiles to fall off the walls.”

Interaction with others wasn’t exactly his strongest suit but that seemed to serve him more than hurt him in this situation. Reiss seemed about as comfortable as he was.

Some silver lining, at least.

“I’ve exhausted enough energy and would appreciate being able to return home now.” Translation: conversation over, fuck off.

The other Vampire seemed to get the hint and allowed him to pass by. After returning all of the tomes that he’d been using; doing his best to contain the smoldering annoyance at not knowing what in the living hell he was missing.

Relieved to have things at an end for the day despite making very little progress, Rivaille unlocked the doors of his car and collapsed into the driver’s seat. Taking a drawn out moment to just sit there in the dark before turning on the Porsche and pulling out of the lot.

He’d speak with his Hunter come morning.

 

* * *

 

 

Clearly, it hadn’t been a dream.

Eren woke up lying face down in a fluffy mattress, curled up beneath a mound of warm comforters and silken sheets, his bound wrist lying beside his head in the near-darkness. He was still squeezed into the tiny pants but his shirt had been removed, his skin harlequinned with a mixture of compress bandages and bruises that had just begun to yellow around the edges.

Feeling stiff and deciding to worry about what manner of punishment was surely soon to come at a later point in time Eren pulled back the comforter enough to check his surroundings and ensure he really was alone. No one inside the cell with him. No one looking in.

He popped his head up fully, checked his surroundings again, then spotted the clothing which Petra had mentioned leaving behind for him. They belonged to Rivaille, she’d said, and that thought made him shudder but the cold made him shudder more and it would be better when he was chained up again to have a shirt on than not.

The floor bit his feet and he hissed, snatching up the clothing quickly and changing into it. Diving back into the bed immediately with the squawk of box springs. A white t-shirt and charcoal sweat pants, a couple inches too short for him and embarrassingly loose around the arms, both of which were soft from thousands of washes.

Eren didn’t know what he hated more, the fact that the new clothes made his nest of blankets smell like _him_ -sandalwood and lemon oil and black tea-or the fact that the smell lulled him back into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he woke up again he was lying on his back, the collar of the shirt pulled up over his mouth and nose, and something warm and made of glass was precariously balanced on his forehead. He jerked in surprise and a pale hand shot out to keep him from upending the mug on his head.

“Had I known you were so desperate to add serious burns to your list of injuries I’d have just poured it on you.” The cup was removed, allowing him to sit up, then shoved into his face again. Eren went cross eyed in an effort to keep it in his line of sight: your run of the mill mug made of glazed ceramic, filled with deep amber liquid which kissed his cheeks with steam and smelled like the shirt he was wearing. “I broke your wrist, not your fingers, so I know you can still hold a cup. Are you going to take it or not?”

The brunet removed his gaze from the cup in order to glare at the raven holding it. Rivaille had brought an old conductor’s lantern down with him and it filled the cell with light, making the wet walls glitter. Eren took the chance to get his first really good look at his captor, squinting hard in an effort to peel away his mask and reveal the monster underneath. The red eyes and the sharp teeth.

All he saw was a man with a young but tired face and a haunting ghost in shadow-ringed blue eyes. He held a mug in each hand, both belching steam and slowly filling the cell with the floral scent of fine tea.

“Do I need to drink from yours first to prove it isn’t poisoned, Icarus?” the edge to his tone alerted the Hunter to the fact that the Vampire might be beginning to become annoyed. “If I wanted you dead you would be already. I only beat the shit out of you because I didn’t have a choice.”

Still reluctant yet cold and thirsty, Eren accepted the cup. Being mindful not to let his fingers come into contact with Rivaille’s. To his relief, once the mug was out of his hand, the Vampire retreated to the other side of the cell. After ensuring that the wall wasn’t too wet he leaned back against it and started in on his cup, holding it oddly by the rim rather than the handle.

 _Why is he so damn good looking?_ Eren stared. He hated that he stared but he did it anyway. Distracted, he took a drink of his tea; strong and unsweetened. He coughed.

“I didn’t know how you took your tea.”

“I don’t.” In the wake of all his coughing, all his screaming and all the time he’d spent unconscious the brunet’s voice was rough.

“Coffee, then?” his face scrunched up, as if the notion of daring to drink coffee offended him on some deep level. “How do you take that, then?”

“Black.” Eren rasped. It wasn’t true, he took it with a lot of milk and a truly criminal amount of sugar-to the degree that Armin had, at one point, asked him if he’d wanted coffee with his morning mug of white froth-but the less he put in it the less of a chance the Leech had to slip him something whilst he was unaware.

His smile was small and showed a flash of sharp incisors. “Like my soul?”

Was that supposed to be some sort of joke? “You don’t have a soul.”

The smile disappeared. Eren took another drink of his tea, just to have something to do other than meeting Rivaille’s stare. “Maybe you’re right.” His voice was so quiet that he barely heard it. “Do you despise me, Icarus?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’ve been cruel to you? Because of my reputation?”

Green eyes fixed him in a cold glare. “Because you’re a Vampire. And I know that you despise me. Because I’m a Hunter. And you hate Hunters.”

“I used to hate Hunters.” The raven’s correction was soft. He took another drink as well and then sighed. “Being racist on principle gets exhausting after a while.” He ran lithe fingers through his raven hair. “I’m starting to go grey.”

Unable to help himself, Eren craned his neck in an effort to spot these fabled ‘grey hairs’. Again, the Vampire smirked.

“A bit gullible, aren’t you Icarus?”

The brunet blew a raspberry. “Stop calling me that! My name is Eren!”

“A bit gullible, aren’t you Eren?” he resisted the urge to lob the cup at him, not wanting to set the Vampire off. Silence stretched on into a small eternity, and then Rivaille came out quite suddenly with “steamer trunk.”

Eren blinked, looking at the raven as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m sorry?”

“Where my mother hid me. When the Hunters came.” Eren looked up sharply. Rivaille’s face once more closed off. “I was five, the night I listened to my family be slaughtered by a pack of Parisian Rose-hounds. When they finished they came looking for me.”

“But they didn’t find you.”

A rictus twitch of pale lips almost formed a mirthless smile. “No, Eren. They found me. But back then the Rose didn’t know much about Vampires and it was too tempting a prospect to have a living subject to dissect to justify killing me.” With one hand he undid the buttons down the front of his shirt. The halves of fabric fell open, revealing the raven’s chest to the other’s green gaze. “They held me captive for five years. Kept me alive as a lab rat. A test subject. It was from your Hunter Sect that I learned to torture, taking inspiration from what was done to me.”

Scars. Eren had never seen so many scars on one person.  Small and large. Short and long. Raised and flat. Silver-white and puckered pink. A few of them the brunet could pick out as obviously being caused by attacking Hunters landing blows but 95% of them were undeniably…

“What about you, Eren?” he set his empty mug down on the stone floor then buttoned his shirt back up. “I could tell, the first time I looked into your eyes. You’re easy to read. We’re two sides of the same shitty coin. So what about you?”

“We’d had a fight.” Eren didn’t know, honestly, why he was telling the Vampire this. He hadn’t told anyone. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks and the raven watched them fall, a tilt to his expression which left him looking like he wanted to reach out and wipe them away. “My family has always been connected to the Rose, going back to the 1400s. On top of being a physician in Maria city, my dad was a researcher for them and was always working on…something in the cellar. I wanted to join the Rose, to free Humanity from your kind’s tyranny, but my mother didn’t want me to. Because it wasn’t safe. I was always such a brat. Never told her that I loved her while I had the chance. I was angry and I ran out and my sister Mikasa came after me but by the time we got back…” He shook his head with all the force that he could muster and almost knocked himself flat onto the mattress. The room spun but he succeeded in dislodging the images he never wanted to see again. “Hannes and his team rescued us but the Vampires got away. Our house burned to the ground. Dad had gone into the city to treat a patient…we never saw him again, so I can only assume they got him too. The academy took us in. Armin too. And I swore. **_I swore that day that I’d kill all of you bastards!”_**

“You’ll take this hard then, brat.” Rivaille removed a letter from the pocket of his slacks and held it out to him. “Read the end.”

The brunet stared at him for a drawn out moment, then took the letter and read the indicated passage. Green eyes went wide as saucers.

‘In hopes of keeping the clues from my brother’s claws should you wish to follow the trail for yourself some day in the distant future I can’t leave you a clear road map, but know this: be it only the Supreme Commander, or the whole of the leadership of the Vatican, the Rose has been in Kenny’s pocket for near a century by now.’

“This…” Eren didn’t know what to think. His hands were shaking as Rivaille took the letter back. “Is this some sort of joke?”

“No.” He said. “No, Eren, it isn’t. My uncle ordered the murder of my family. The murder of my other uncle, though I must claim some fault as I’m the one who turned Alias in. And he most likely ordered the murder of your family as well.”

“I can’t believe this! I _won’t_ believe this! What have we been fighting for, what have we been dying for, if this… _I don’t believe you!_ ” Mind games! It had to be mind games. Lies. Lies! _Lies!_ Eren refused to let the bastard break him like this. Refused to let him seed doubt in his mind. “How dare you suggest that I’m an agent of your kind!”

“I’m not suggesting that you are.” He said. “But your Superiors, those above your Superiors or quite possibly those above them may be. Perhaps they started out like you, but as they rose through the ranks and became more and more distant from the fight they may have changed.”

“No one in the Rose would betray Humanity! Our oaths-!”

“You’re young and naïve! Are you really going to tell me that you believe empty platitudes, words that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, are going to somehow prevent those who swore them from pursuing their own self-interests?” Rivaille’s  voice was cold, his accent a blade of ice along his words, and it was starkly clear he’d lost his patience. “Altruism doesn’t make the world go round. Revenge just eats you up and leaves you hollow; the brighter the fire the faster it dies. Greed is one of the strongest forces on earth. My uncle knows all of this and will have used it like a bludgeon and a crop to reduce your Sect to tools. Attack dogs. Rabid ones at that. I’m looking for concrete proof, am getting close, but I’m still missing something.” He crossed his arms. “A more pressing concern is determining how exactly I’m supposed to go about legally keeping you here without forcing you to spend the rest of your natural lifespan in my basement.”

“Why would you care?” He didn’t. Not really. Of course he didn’t. This was just another, insidious plot to get inside his mind. To trick him. To give him hope that he could take away and crush. But Eren knew better than to trust a Vampire.

No matter how pretty they were.

“Because I’m sick of killing. Because I don’t want to see you end up like I have. Because there’s something about you that’s different, and as drawing to me as a flame is to a moth.” He could have sworn he heard the raven mutter “and it’ll be the death of me” under his breath as he turned away.  “Petra will bring food down to you later today. We’ll speak again when I have a workable proposition.”

Rivaille had exited the cell before Eren could respond, taking the lantern with him and leaving the Hunter once more alone in the dark.


	4. An Uncomfortable Truce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this one is "Call Me Devil" by Friends in Tokyo

“Just when I thought I was seeing things.” The chair across from him at the same table he’d been seated at the night before scraped back, allowing the blonde to drop into it. “What brings you down to Mitras City Library, Rivaille? I thought you hated this place, what with all of the dust and ‘shit heads’.”

“Church.” The annoyance in his voice when he spoke wasn’t aimed at his friend but rather at the effort to locate a solution to his other massive problem. Which was about as productive as the parallel search for solutions to the first. “Did you have to remind me about the fucking dust? I won’t get anything done now!”

Farlan grinned, his silver eyes gleaming in the half-light like coins. The raven frowned and turned the page of the book lying open in front of him. Roughly.

“Careful, those tomes are old and you’ll rip out pages if you keep turning them like that.” He reached across the table and picked up the neat pile of notes Rivaille had stacked beside his hand. Easily avoiding the half-hearted attempt that his friend made to stab him with his pen. “Don’t you have anything else to occupy your attention? I hadn’t thought you’d be sitting here, elbow deep in books older than the both of us combined, when word is you have a Hunter in your basement.”

Rivaille could tell, from the way that Farlan was looking at him, that the blonde was seeking confirmation on the matter but didn’t want to voice his curiosity. The raven knew that he’d been acting a bit out of sorts for…decades now. Even Isabelle, vivacious and fiery, had begun to become somewhat skittish around him.

“I do have a Hunter in my basement.” He hedged, watching the other man leaf through the notes he’d taken. Neat and precise, like everything he did, for all that they were worth. Or weren’t worth. “But…I’m looking for a different solution. Something to do with him that doesn’t involve killing him. I’m sick of all this killing, Farlan.”

The blonde nodded calmly. Of the two of them, he always had been the one, most…concerned by what he’d termed the raven’s ‘rampant violence’. “And that’s why you’re looking into the legality of sycophants?”

“Yes.” He said, picking at the uneven pages of the book. “For all that it’s presenting fruit for my labors.”

“You may be looking in the wrong direction.” Farlan passed the papers back across the table to him. “Looking for holes in the matter of the sycophants which Kenny only barely tolerates won’t be of any help to you. Not only would you have to share him, but he could run off back to Rose while you weren’t looking.”

“The way you’re talking, Church, makes me think that you have a solution for me.”

“I might.” The blonde was the one who was hedging now. Rivaille could see the nervousness in his eyes as they darted about the surrounding area. “But this isn’t the place to discuss this. Are you busy tonight?”

“Excluding this shit? No.” Rivaille said. “Why?”

“Because I’m inviting you over to my manor in Yarckle.” He said. “We’ll have a drink. Talk this over there, where we can be certain no one will overhear who shouldn’t.”

Well, it would certainly be a hell of a lot better than sitting here and sifting through the sand pit in front of him. It was undeniable that Farlan was right about one thing. ‘Sycophant’ was the wrong tree for him to be barking up. Rivaille flipped the book in front of him shut, stood up and stretched. His joints popping.

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer. It’s been a long time since any of the three of us have gotten together to shoot the shit.” Pushing the chair that he’d been sitting in back into place as Farlan rose from his own, Rivaille started towards the library doors. “We’ll catch up while we’re at it. May as well, since we have the chance.”

“Your car or mine?”

“Both.” The heavy wooden doors creaked as the raven pushed them open. “We’ll drive separately because I don’t want to come back here again tonight if it’s in any way avoidable. Between this matter and another I’ll be stuck here enough as it is.”

“Understandable.” He ignored the age old annoyance over how much taller than him the other male was and started down the stairs. Still, after all this time, it gnawed at the farthest corners of his awareness like white noise. At least by now he was well adept at pushing thoughts of matters out of his mind. “You know how to get there, don’t you?”

“Gunther may drive me most places but that doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around Sina, ǎne!” The points on his words were blunted. Farlan grinned again, trotting to a stop at the back of the black Porsche.

“An ass, am I?” Leaning his hip against the bumper of the vehicle, the blonde folded his arms. “What does that make you, then, if I’m one of the few people in the world you can stand to be around?”

Rivaille’s reply was a harsh grunt as he opened the driver’s side door. “Get out of the way before I accidentally run you over.”

“’Accidentally’.” Chuckling to himself, Farlan pushed off from the bumper and started toward the silver corvette parked diagonally across the lot. “I’ll see you in a couple of minutes, Rivaille.”

The engine purred to life the moment that the key was turned in the ignition. Dragged the gear shift into reverse and backing out of the spot, the raven pulled out onto the main road outside the lot.

Driving through the city’s by now familiar streets presented his mind with an opportunity to wander. And like the traitorous little shit head he’d long since learned it was it took that chance. And snapped back, as if by elastic, to what had seemingly become its favorite subject.

Eren.

The t-shirt had been a bit big around the shoulders and short at the waist, revealing a swath of shapely collarbone and the wash board abs gained from the Hunter Sect’s near endless regiment of training. All covered in that perfect, caramel skin. The sweat pants had revealed his ankles; they were thin, like his wrists, and the left one bore an odd crescent scar likely caused by some childhood injury. The way that he’d looked, asleep and nested down amidst the comforter and sheets…

The steering wheel creaked beneath the force of Rivaille’s grip, knuckles white against the dark leather. Narrowly avoiding passing his turn off he jerked the wheel so hard that the back of the Porsche fishtailed. The wheels shrieking against the asphalt.

What was he going to do if the ‘solution’ Farlan had wasn’t a solution at all. Or wasn’t applicable. If there was no other choice and he was forced to kill…

No! Killing Eren wasn’t an option and he refused to allow it to become one. If everything else failed and no matter what flaming hoops he had to jump through to make it look believable, Rivaille would stage a fucking jail break and drive the brunet back to Rose himself.

And of course that damned selfish, reckless, indulgent part of him-the part that was left behind when good sense and logic and tradition and law were all stripped away; the instinctual reptilian part of him which linked the raven to the ancient red-eyed terrors which had forced primitive man to cower in caves during the dark hours-prayed to whatever God or Devil might exist that the boy would stay. And urged him to keep him in that cage forever if he refused to.

“Les oiseaux en cage ne chantent pas.” A reminder. A warning to himself. To that damned animal part of him that wanted the Hunter as its own and couldn’t give less of a shit to law or the brunet’s desires or the raven’s better sense regardless. Caged birds don’t sing.

Damn it all that he never wanted to see the effervescent fire in the boy’s eyes go away.

Farlan’s manor was considerably smaller than his, both because he wasn’t an Ackerman and because he wasn’t as entirely adverse to needless social interaction as Rivaille tended to be. There was, admittedly, a reason why most in the Military Police referred to his home as a ‘compound’.

Parking the Porsche on the curving drive and locking the doors behind him, the raven met his longtime friend on the marble porch and together they proceeded inside. Darker furnishings than weren’t to his own taste, with rooms which verged on claustrophobic. Most would have referred to them as ‘cozy’ but Rivaille hadn’t done well with confined spaces since that awful night in Paris.

Thankfully, the den was the largest room in the manor and it was there that Farlan led him. Even with a good deal of the space taken up by taxidermied trophies, a pool table and a fully stocked wet bar.

Rivaille collapsed gracefully onto one of the leather couches, crossing his legs and draping his arms along the back. “At least your people are better at getting rid of dust than whoever the hell is in charge of that shit hole.”

“We may not be Olympic grade cleaners like you and your coven are, Rivaille, but we do take hygiene seriously.” Farlan returned from behind the bar with two glasses in his hands, one a Dark n’ Stormy and the other a mix of blood and vodka. “You still drink AB, right?”

Dodging the question, he said “this your idea of a Bloody Mary, Church?”

“I know that Kir Royale or Straight Absinthe are your drinks of choice but you look like you haven’t been eating like you should.”

“So instead of giving me straight blood you thought ‘fuck it, Vodka will go well with this’?” Rivaille took a drink and grimaced. The familiar bitter taste of alcohol flooded over his tongue. The lukewarm blood made his fangs ache.

“I promised you a drink,” was the blonde’s justification. “We have Kir, too. But drink that first.”

“Mère poule.” He grumbled, but drank the cup anyway. Once he was finished his friend exchanged if for a round of the promised cocktails. The slight sweetness of the black currant liqueur did a good job of washing the taste of the Vodka away. “Much better.”

Farlan laughed at him and headed towards the pool table, his own half-finished drink held in one hand. “Up for a game while we talk this over?”

“Why not?” leaving his seat, he joined him at the table and accepted the chalked stick he was handed. “Stripes or solids?”

“Guest always breaks first. It’s a curtesy.”

“Stripes, then.” As usual. Which left the raven with solids. As usual. “It’s been a long ass time since I’ve played so don’t expect much.” The white cue ball shot across the table and blew apart the triangular formation of colored balls. “But I’d appreciate getting back to the topic originally at hand. You said that you had information for me, Church?”

“I said I thought I might.” The cue ball missed its mark and smashed into the edge of the table with a thump. “My father knew a lot more about it than I do, but Hunters got him back in 1826 so I can’t send you his way. It’s an old practice, one that predates the Military Police, and it died out around 1475 but I don’t know if that’s because it’s on the books as illegal or if it just went out of style.”

“ _What_ practice?” Rivaille watched the third solid ball disappear into one of the pockets on the table. “Spit it out, Farlan!”

“Have you ever heard the term ‘supplicant’ before, Rivaille?” he lined up another shot, took it and missed.

“The word, yes.” He said. “Thought not in the context you seem to be referring to. What is a Supplicant.”

“You’d have to ask an Old Blood for more information, most likely-it’s a long shot that you’d find anything on them in the library-but from what I understand they’re similar to the sycophants of today. At least in some respects.” Farlan finished off his drink. “Before the Military Police was formed, when our people were divided into separate clans and covens with no universal leader, we had a closer bond with the humans. They were used to make werewolves to guard us against attack and we turned them into Dhampir servants but some were taken in as a part of covens without being changed into anything. In return for a comfortable life protected by a Vampire, they bounded with that Vampire and supplied them with a source of blood.”

All of the solid balls had now vanished from the table. Rivaille hadn’t managed to knock out half of the striped ones.

“Supposedly, it made them live longer as well. They weren’t immortal like us, but some were reported as living to be almost a thousand, and that their aging slowed or stopped. Not only that, but supposedly their blood volume and the rate at which it was replenished doubled.”

“The better to sustain their Masters, I suppose.” What was this? Red fucking Ridinghood? “Is that everything you know?”

“I’m afraid so.” The felt tip of the cue in his hands clacked against the ceramic eight ball. It bounced twice before vanishing into the farthest rightmost pocket. Farlan straightened up. “It’s not quite dark out yet. Up for another round?”

 

* * *

 

 

Rivaille had told him that Petra would bring him down food in a few hours so it couldn’t have been as long as he thought it was, yet even though he knew that it still felt like days since he’d last seen another person. In the darkness, his only company his growling stomach and the distant dripping of water from elsewhere in the basement, time passed slowly. Eren had been preoccupied with the effort to keep his mind focused on the cold, or the wet, or just how completely blind he was down there in that tiny cell. Anything to keep it from thinking about what the Vampire had told him. What that damned letter had said.

Eren refused to allow doubt to grow in his mind. So he’d ignored it. Push it down. Ultimately forget it and go on as normal. He wouldn’t let those fucking things win and actually allow himself to believe that Rivaille had claimed.

It wasn’t naivety. It was loyalty. It was honor. It was doing what was right.

When the light of that old conductor’s lantern began drawing towards him down the stairs, the brunet was left torn between not wanting anything to do with the Vampire bitch and being grateful for the distraction.

When Petra came into view she was burned down with a number of things. Eren’s first conclusion was that none of them would be pleasant and all of them would be used on him and prepared to make a potential suicide rush in an effort to escape. But then she drew a bit closer and he was able to make out what the objects were. A tray laden with two plates of dinner, two plates of cake and two cans of some drink or another was held in her hands along with the lantern. Over one arm was a thick plush throw blanket and under another was a large leather covered book.

With a bit of minor trouble she managed to get the key into the lock and pushed the door open. The sound of the hinges shrieking was legitimately painful, and it seemed like the Vampire found it even more painful than he did if the brief scrunching of her expression was anything to go by.

“Hello Eren.” He didn’t like how friendly she sounded and pressed himself back against the wall. Blankets still wrapped around him to ward off the cold. “I’m Petra Ral, one of Rivaille’s coven members. You were unconscious last I was down here, when we treated your wounds.” She said. “I’d bet your wrist is a little sore. I brought down some pain medication for you to take after you’ve eaten. Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.” His voice was clipped and sharp. Entirely impolite. But he didn’t care. There was two of everything. Why was there two of everything on the tray that she held?

“Hungry?” Eren nodded stiffly. “Mind if I sit?”

There wasn’t anything he could do to stop her. The brunet nodded again once he’d sidled to the farthest end of the bed. Rather than look offended, Petra set the tray between them and sat down on the opposite end of the bed. “Lemon or Blackberry?”

She made a vague gesture to the cans of soda when she asked so Eren could only assume that Petra wanted to know what flavor he’d prefer.

“Blackberry.” He mumbled, barely audible. She passed him the appropriate can and opened her own. The aluminum was ice cold to the touch.

“Let me know how the food is. Eld likes feedback on his cooking.” Petra handed him a fork this time. “And if there’s any dishes you like you can tell me that too, Eren. Contrary to what I’m sure it looks like, you’re a guest of Rivaille’s and not a prisoner.”

Because he definitely believed that.

“I brought down another blanket for you. It’s brutal down here and I wasn’t certain what was already here was enough to keep you warm.”

“Thanks.” Another barely audible word as he wrapped the throw around himself and started eating.

“Would you like to talk? Maybe about your friends or your family?” she either didn’t notice his flinch or didn’t acknowledge it. “It might help to take your mind off things a bit.”

Eren stuffed his mouth with green beans so that he didn’t have to answer.

“I never knew my mother and don’t have any siblings. My father isn’t the most influential man in the city but he’s kind and that’s what really matters; I helped him run his flower shop until Rivaille offered me a place in his coven.” She said. “That was about a century ago. I was a little past three hundred at the time.”

“That young for a Vampire, is it?”

“Not young, exactly, but not old either. Of course, when you live forever age starts to mean very little.” Petra shifted her position and took a drink from her can. “I was the baby of the group, though not by much, before you came. You’re only 17.”

“ _I’m not a part of your coven!”_ He snapped it like a wild dog. If it frightened Petra she hid it well.

“I’m sorry, Eren. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything to make you uncomfortable.” She said.

He snorted derisively and went back to eating. For a long time the only sounds in the cell were the gentle scratching of their forks against their plates.

“My parents were killed by your kind. My sister Mikasa and I, and our best friend Armin, were taken in by the academy.”

“Mikasa Jaeger?” she asked.

Eren shook his head. “No. Mikasa Ackerman; we took her in after her parents were killed. And there’s no relation between her and that short bastard!” He said. “Natsuko and Alias were kind people! Alias worked with my dad on his project for the Rose! They weren’t Vampires and my sister isn’t one either!”

“Of course not.” Petra’s voice was suddenly as stiff as her posture and for the life of him Eren couldn’t understand why. “Why don’t you tell me about that friend you mentioned? Armin?”

“His parents died in a hot air balloon accident when he was only two. His grandfather raised him but he got really sick around the time Mikasa and I went to the Academy, and since he couldn’t take care of him anymore and he sent him with us.” Eren set his empty plate aside and picked up the cake. He really didn’t want to admit it but, after ages of near to tasteless barrack’s food and however the hell long he’d spent down in that cell without eating the food had been heavenly. “He wasn’t the most confident person in the world when we were younger, the town bullies with bricks instead of brains would target him for being so much smarter than they were, but he’s gotten a lot better now that we’ve graduated. He pulled 11th in our class; we were both really proud of him.”

“You sound like good friends to have, Eren.” His reply was a grunt. “What was your graduating rank?”

“Fifth.”

Shock flashed across her face. “You’re only a fifth rank but they sent you after Rivaille alone?”

 ** _Only_** _a fifth rank?_ One of the small muscles in his face twitched. “Hey! I’d have been in the top three in any other class but the 104 th! Collectively, we’re the greatest batch of Hunters that the Rose has _ever_ produced! I can handle myself!” He crossed his arms and huffed. “What do you care anyway? All you’re trying to do is drive me crazy, and then your bastard leader will rip me apart like all the other Hunters he’s ever tossed down here to rot!”

His voice echoed off the stone walls like thunder. Eren glared, clenching his fork white knuckled in his hand. Damn it all if he didn’t briefly catch that same look of fake pity flashing across her features.

“What about your sister?” clearly she was making an effort to change the subject. Probably able to hear the brunet’s heart thudding against his ribs. “What was her rank?”

He swallowed a few times then frowned. “First.”

Petra nodded again. They finished their cake and drinks in silence and Eren was grateful for the reprieve. After maybe ten minutes she picked up the book and set it in her lap. “Would you like to hear our side of the legend of how Vampires came to be? I’m sure the Hunter side is a little…different.”

The brunet heard how his own laugh rang hollow. “There is no ‘Hunter side’ to whatever legend you’re talking about. We don’t care how your kind came to be.” He said. “All we know is that you exist and that we wish you didn’t.”

‘Being racist on principle gets exhausting after a while.’ Eren grit his teeth as Rivaille’s voice echoed in his head.

“Well,” there was something strained to her tone now, “would you be interested in the legend Eren?”

“It’s not like I can stop you from doing what you want.” He grumbled. “And I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Well,” she opened the book; the old cover creaked on its bent spine, “I’m sure you know the story of Cain and Abel.”

“I’m an atheist.”

Again that flash of surprise, though milder this time. “That’s unusual, for a Hunter.”

“Prayer didn’t save my parents.” Eren pulled his knees up to his chest and coiled himself more tightly in the blankets. “What’s the point?”

“We have a version of a tale that’s a bit different from the one in the bible anyway, so maybe it’s for the best you’re not religious.” Petra said, turning the pages of the book. “Cain and Abel were the twin brothers of Adam and Eve, born after the pair were ejected from the Garden of Eden. Cain grew jealous of his brother, who was favored by both their parents and God. So he went looking for a way to prove himself to be better than Abel.”

Coming to the page in the book that she wanted, Petra tapped the page gently and turned the book for him to see. Splashed across the thin, age-yellowed pages was a charcoal drawing. A young man standing in front of an inhuman figure, crouched and massive with cloven feet and horns on its head.

“He found the Earth Devil after years of searching. Was given immortality and power and magic but in return, he and all his descendants were cursed with the need to drink blood to survive.” The next page showed the beast that Eren knew the Vampires to truly be. All glowing eyes and thin skin, lips drawn back into a brutal snarl over massive fangs. “When Cain returned years later the brother’s fought. He killed his twin and later died of his wounds but both had had children by then and the fighting continued. The Children of Cain chased the Children of Abel into hiding by night while the Children of Abel chased the Children of Cain into hiding by day. Then, in about the year 600, the Hunter Sect was formed and the Rose forced us to seek safety in numbers. That was how the coven system first came to be; an effort to make hunting, when we’re most vulnerable, less dangerous. It worked, to a certain point, but added a new problem: clan wars.”

She turned another page and Eren jerked back in surprise. The creature was one that he had never seen before, looking vaguely like something out of the _Underworld_ movies; wide set and muscular, canid in appearance and covered in thick fur.

“Werewolves were the solution and they worked for a while. Howlpacks loyal to the covens which created them defended Vampire clans from rival clans and Hunters. But living weapons aren’t a safe thing to keep around: eventually, they gain a mind of their own. Kenny had them wiped out and formed the Military Police instead.”

“So the Military Police hasn’t always been a thing?” why hadn’t he known that before. Apathetic as the Rose might be to the history of the monsters that seemed to Eren like something which might have been important to know.

“No. And the Ackerman’s haven’t always been in power. But Kenny seized his chance when he saw it.” There was something in her voice which left Eren with the impression that she wasn’t particularly fond of her coven leader’s uncle. She closed the book in front of her with a sigh and stood up, taking the tray with her. “It’s beginning to get a bit late, Eren. Rivaille isn’t back yet, to my knowledge, and I still have a few things left to do before he gets back. I’ll leave you be.”

“Wait!”

Halfway through reaching for the lantern she looked back at him. “Yes?”

“Could you…” asking for anything from a Vampire was hard. Eren was detachedly aware that his lower lip was sticking at into what could be considered a pout. “Could you leave that down here, please? It sucks. Constantly being in the dark.”

Petra sent an almost worried glance at the lantern, then sighed and smiled. “Of course. Just be careful with it, Eren; it runs on kerosene and we wouldn’t want any of that to spill.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised. And Eren meant it. He didn’t have any intention of setting himself on fire.

“Alright then. You can operate it with this knob here; right makes it brighter and left makes it dimmer.”

He nodded and muttered another half-hearted thanks before watching Petra walk away. When he was once more alone, green eyes fell onto the lantern. Watching the flame waver back and forth. Eren couldn’t help but think that the gas light sitting on the floor in front of him was a perfect metaphor for his situation.


	5. Their Arrangement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this one is Shinedown "The Crow and the Butterfly"

Despite Farlan’s warning that his likelihood of finding anything further on the matter of Supplicants at Mitras County Library was very low Rivaille had returned to the dust ridden pit of despair in an effort to scour the law books and determine whether or not the practice had indeed become illegal before making any effort to pursue it further. Luckily for him it turned out that the late night of tiny faded letters and paper cuts from brittle pages that he dreaded hadn’t been in store for him after all.

Not more than ten steps across the lot he’d run into Pixis and, remembering his friend’s comment about the Old Bloods being possessed of more information on the subject and a bit against his better judgement, Rivaille had dropped a cautious question. And things had turned out far better than he’d hoped.

Older than both Kenny and Garad, the taller man had been rather more pleased than Rivaille thought he should be by what he termed ‘a young person showing interest in the old traditions’ and had informed him quite blithely that, as it had gone out of style during the time of the Smith Rebellion while he’d been preoccupied with more important things Kenny had never gotten around to making the practice illegal. And though the older Vampire had warned him many in the Military Police would be less than keen to see traditions from before their time of power revived Rivaille had never much cared for the opinions of others anyway.

When he’d reminded Pixis of such the Old Blood had laughed and told him he’d have a book on the matter sent over to his manor in the morning. With the questions he’d still had answered, at least for the most part, the raven had returned home and promptly passed out after a long hot shower.

Rivaille now sat curled up in the library of his manor, wrapped in a soft blanket with a cup of earl grey close at hand and his nose buried in a well-worn copy of _Master and Margarita._ He hadn’t gotten all that far into it when the knock came at the front door of his manor. Distantly, he heard Oluo answer and pulled the ribbon marker into place.

He’d just set the book on the small table in front of him when his visitor appeared at the library’s door, a positively massive gold-leafed tome clutched in her arms.

Shedding the blanket, the raven rose from his seat and went to relieve her of the book. “Thank you, Rico.” It was said more out of politeness than anything else. The blonde stared him down hawkishly from behind wire-rimmed glasses as she handed it over. “Extended my thanks to Pixis as well. This is just the information I’ve been looking for.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Rivaille.” She said.

“Supplicants aren’t illegal. I’ve checked.”

“Maybe not on paper. And to actually consider using a Hunter-.”

“Breaking Hunters is my specialty, Brzenska!” The snap of his voice was accentuated by the thud of the tome landing on the table. “I’m more than capable of handling a child.”

“And what if he attacks someone else?”

“I’m not about to let him out of that cage until he’s trained.” Rivaille resumed his seat, this time with the massive book open in his lap. “And even then he’ll have a leash.”

“And a muzzle?”

“No. No muzzle.” He made a point of flashing his fangs. From the sudden stiffness of her posture he knew the blonde had gotten the message. “That would stop him from biting when I want him to. Should I have you shown out?”

“No need. I remember my own way to your door.” She said. “Pixis wanted it made clear that you’re welcome to that book as long as you need it. Have a good day, Rivaille.”

Once she was gone he allowed his shoulders to slump. Reaching up to massage his temples in an effort to lessen the strength of the headache he knew was coming on. Sure enough, a few minutes later, it felt like a bird was trying to hatch from his skull.

Picking up his tea and draining the cup quickly in the hopes that the caffeine would lessen the steady throbbing of his head, Rivaille directed his attention back to the book in front of him. Focusing his mind on something other than the pain.

Open deadline or not, the raven knew he couldn’t afford to take his time with this. He needed to compile as much information on the matter as possible in a short span of time so that he could solidify their terms and present the matter to Eren for agreement or rejection. And he knew that the longer he kept the Hunter under lock and key in the cold and damp the more choleric and disagreeable he was liable to become.

Not that Rivaille could truly blame him.

He was caught up in his research until about an hour passed noon, by which point he’d read or at the very least skimmed through the entirety of the tome from cover to cover and compiled a neat pile of concise notes containing everything the brunet would need to know in order to make an informed decision.

By then, Petra had taken making sure he ate into her own hands and showed up in the library with a prepared tray and a fresh pot of tea. A cup of blood was on the tray as well, warmed in the microwave and giving off a thin cloud of steam.

Better than taking it cold, admittedly, but still not the same as hunting would have been. Not that he’d been able to do that in recent decades either, with the suffocating fucking guilt. He really hoped that Eren would be receptive to the arrangement. The thought of driving his fangs into that long, tanned neck…

“Fuck.” Rivaille muttered under his breath, shifting the book aside and picking up the cup of blood.

“Lost track of time?” Petra asked from the seat she’d taken nearby, thin fingers worrying the spine of _Scarlet Letter_ but making no attempt to actually read it. There was a smile on her face, as was usual, but this one didn’t reach her eyes, which wasn’t. Something was bothering her.

“Yes,” he admitted around the rim of the cup, “but that’s not why. I thought I had more control over my own mental process than the past few days have shown.”

“It might help your focus to take better care of yourself, Rivaille” The nail of her thumb ran the curving track of the capital S embossed into the leather. “Fifty years of nothing but bagged blood isn’t good for anyone. It’s been a long time since any of us have seen you without those shadows under your eyes.”

And in them, but that part went unsaid.

“Hunting is too much of a bother. At least with bagged blood I can be certain I’m not at risk to catch something.” She saw straight through him, Rivaille knew she did, but to his eternal gratitude and immense relief Petra didn’t challenge him on the claim. “And I’d rather not risk an indirect kiss with some shithead from a sycophant’s neck. Not to mention most of the savages who use them drool all over. It’s disgusting.”

Finishing the cup of blood, he set it aside and picked up the cup of tea instead.

“And then there’s the fact that none of them are type AB. Like Eren.” Between her tone and the way that she was looking at him Rivaille knew, full well, what she was really saying. And he knew that he could lie to her, but that she’d see straight though him on that matter as well.  
                “Yes.”  He watched the amber liquid waver gently in its china confines. “But the Military Police doesn’t punish thought crimes. And as long as he keeps up his marvelous impression of a fucking cactus controlling myself and making sure those thought crimes don’t become physical, punishable offenses will be easy.”

So long as the chains on the greedy demon inside him held fast.

“He’s in pain.” She said after a drawn out moment. “So are you.” Then, when all he did was grunt and continue staring into his tea Petra sat forward and nudged the tray closer. “Eat. You can make an effort at reconnecting with lost Pureblood magic by reading tea leaves after lunch.”

The near to motherly exasperation in her tone was enough to make him snort, reach forward and exchange the tea for the plate of sandwiches sitting dead center of the tray.

“How did it go?” he asked after a couple of bites. “Bringing dinner to the brat.”

“He wasn’t very friendly or very polite but that’s understandable. He’s being held against his will by creatures he’s learned to hate and I’m sure he’s scared out of his mind and trying to hide that fact behind aggression.” She tapped the corner of the book in her lap. “I can’t imagine what he’s been through.”

“The same thing I have, to a certain point.” He said. “Is that what’s bothering you, Ral?”

“I…no.” She set the book aside and folded her hands in her lap instead. “It was something he said while we were eating.”

With how volatile the boy had proven to be, any number of concerning things could have come spewing out of his mouth along with the vitriol. “And what was that?”

“It had to do with his adopted sister. I asked him about his family in an effort to get him talking.” She said. “You remember that job that those two goons of Reiss’ botched about eight years ago? When they finally managed to corner your uncle?”

Rivaille nodded. “You’re referring to how my cousin got away.”

“Eren might have been the reason for that.”

“Those three idiots were murdered with a kitchen knife. Where I’ll admit that that’s far from typical Hunter equipment, he’d have been nine at the time.” He said. “It’s improbable that an untrained human child could have taken down three Purebloods alone.” But not impossible, especially considering the kind of anger he’d seen in Eren. And if the Darkling had helped him… “Why?”

“Her name is Mikasa Ackerman.” Petra said.

“I never caught my cousin’s given name, and as much as Kenny would like to think otherwise ‘Ackerman’ isn’t the rarest human surname in the world.”

“Her mother’s name was Natsuko, just like the woman your uncle ran off with, and her father’s name also happened to be Alias.”

“Admittedly some things line up too well to be coincidence.” He said. “Not that there’s anything I can do with that information. Alias would have known that his daughter being made aware of the truth of what she was would have set us on her trail faster than anything else, so he wouldn’t have told her. And if she doesn’t know what she is then there’s no way the brat could. Not to mention that sicking anyone on his sister wouldn’t do much to endear us to him.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“What I should have done when her father first came to me for help.”  He said. “Protect my family. And right now, keeping my mouth shut is the best way to do that.” Finishing off the tea as well, Rivaille straightened his papers and got to his feet. “Thank you, Petra, but if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a proposition to make to a certain Hunter.”

 

* * *

 

 

He’d become so lost in the flickering of the fire in front of him, contained within the lantern’s thin glass like some massive firefly or delicate fairy, that the sound of footsteps on the stairs didn’t register. Looking up at last when he felt eyes on him, blinking away the spots of color emblazoned across his irises by the light, Eren found himself confronted with the sight of Rivaille watching him from the other side of the bars.

 _How long has he been there?_ Eren had no way of knowing and that reality made his skin crawl. He was a Hunter! He was supposed to be aware enough to notice the presence of danger immediately, but he hadn’t! He was slipping!

The raven was dressed once more in a button down and slacks, a stack of papers-orderly and, by the look of them, covered in neat handwriting-held in long pale fingers.

“Good afternoon, Eren.” Goddamn, that voice! He had too many blankets wrapped around his body to fall back on the ‘shivering because it’s cold in here’ excuse with any believability. “I know that conditions down here aren’t ideal but I believe I’ve finally found the best solution for both of us. And it comes with the added bonus of driving my uncle up a wall.” It seemed like the prospect of poking the dragon was something that the smaller male found amusing. Almost as if it were an innocent pass time. “I’ve a proposition to make you, brat. May I come in?”

 _There he goes again. Asking even though he knows he can just do whatever he wants. What’s the point?_ Eren huffed. “Fine.”

Again with that damned shrieking door! Rivaille seemed about as fed up with it as he was, judging by the evil eye he sent the hinges as he passed them by.

“Nothing can be done about them, unfortunately. It’s too damned wet down here for oil to be of any use.” He crossed the cell towards him. “At least you won’t have to be down here much longer. Read this over, completely, and then take a few days to think about your answer.”

Reluctantly, Eren took the stack of papers from the Vampire in front of him. Green eyes rapidly scanning the orderly columns of information and alighting on the line that made his eyes bug out in shock.

The bastard wanted to turn him into some sort of living blood bag! “ ** _No_** _!_ No way!” He lobbed the papers away from him with all the strength that he possessed; they collided with Rivaille’s chest with a disappointingly limp wristed flop then scattered across the cell. “Go to hell, parasite! You want my blood? You’ll have to take it, and kill me in the process, because there’s no way I’d ever even _consider_ giving it to you!”

To willingly feed a Vampire? Reduce himself to a sycophant, or something of the sort? Never! He wouldn’t! If the leech wanted his blood then he could take it, and choke on it, but he’d never gift wrap his throat with a pink bow and turn himself into a cocktail!

It was all just a pretense anyway. One of his sick games. The raven didn’t look well, like he hadn’t been eating like he should. Wasn’t getting the nutrition that he needed. And damn it if the heavy bags under his eyes and the unnatural pallor of his skin even for a Vampire wasn’t eliciting the faintest stirring of an all too familiar urge.

Even through all his bloodlust and his anger and his hate at his core Eren was kind and deeply caring both for those he knew and those he didn’t. His mother had always called him her little border collie, and it had been an apt enough nickname. He’d known, intimately, what the desire to shield someone-from others, from circumstance, from themselves-felt like since he’d been old enough to tell the difference between his fingers and his toes. Regardless of whether they needed it, or would appreciate it, his knee jerk reaction always had been to sacrifice for others. It was what had led him to meet Armin. To save Mikasa. And now…

 _Damn it! I’m doing more damage to my own ability to stand firm than any of the Vampires are!_ Again, Eren grit his teeth. The grind of enamel wasn’t massively affective but it helped a little. And he was so desperate at this point that that was more than enough. He just needed something to ground himself. _Any minute now he’ll jump you and rip your throat out and here you are, sitting here and wondering if he’s been missing meals! Get a fucking grip!_ Had he been alone Eren probably would have hit himself. But anything so degrading was off the table until his company was no longer looking at him.

“If your decision hasn’t changed by tomorrow I’ll accept your choice, Eren.” Rivaille had retrieved and reorganized the stack of papers and was once more holding them out for him to take. “But I want you to have fully considered this. Read them. _All_ of them. There may be something in there that changes your mind.”

“Yeah?” he snapped in a  moment of boldness. “Well, what do I get in return for ‘considering’ your offer?”

Grey eyes blinked owlishly out of the gloom at him. Clearly, the raven wasn’t used to being spoken back to. “You want something in return for reading this notes, brat? Did I hear you correctly?”

There was something icy in his tone which raised the hair along the back of Eren’s neck. Refusing to show fear, the brunet crossed his arms over his chest. “No matter what those stupid notes say it won’t change my mind. What you’re asking me to do is waste my time.” Time which would have been spent doing nothing more productive than staring at the wall or the ceiling or the lamp but that didn’t need to be factored into matters. It wasn’t important. “I want something in return.”

Another, almost reptilian blink. Slow, like a well-fed lizard sunning itself on a rock. Finally, the Vampire sighed. “Name your price, Shit head.”

Eren’s mouth was moving before his mind had made a conscious decision. “I want a phone call. Even prisoners get phone calls, and since Petra’s taken pains to inform me that I’m your guest and not your prisoner that means I should get one too.”

He was kicking a wolf, and a part of him knew it, but Eren couldn’t help it. He’d never been a particularly cautious person and the thought of hearing a familiar voice again was too tempting to pass up. And if there was any chance that he’d get to make that thought a reality Eren would ring it dry.

Even if it killed him.

For a small eternity the atmosphere in the cell was tense, heavy with anticipation as the Vampire debated how best to respond to his challenge. Finally, he reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out a rectangular object. Sleek, black and about the size of his hand.

A cellphone.

Unlocking the screen with the quick pass of his thumb, Rivaille handed the device over.

“You have half an hour to call however many people you’d like,” he said, turning to exit the cell. “No snooping.”

Not that Eren could have if he’d wanted to because, as he soon found out, the language setting of the cellphone was set to French and the language menu wasn’t where it should have been. Giving up on the effort after about ten seconds, Eren turned his attention to making good use of the time that he’d been given.

There was no contest on who he should call. He knew who he had to call. That there was no choice because he hadn’t talked to her before he’d left the barracks. Because he hadn’t wanted to run the risk of his sister trying to stop him from running off to take the job that he now regretted ever having been given.

After taking a moment to call to mind his sister’s number now that he no longer had recorded in his contact’s list, what with the fact that this wasn’t his phone, Eren typed in the correct sequence of numbers and then listened to the hollow ringing until the other end of the line was picked up.

“Who is this?”

That was right, she wouldn’t recognize the number he was calling from. Eren was lucky she’d even picked up at all. The sound of his sister’s voice, which he’d begun to fear he’d never hear again, made his eyes itch and then the tears spill over.

When he spoke, his voice was thick. “Mikasa.” He said. “It’s me.”

“Eren!” she sounded less upset with him than the brunet had expected, though that was likely because the distress in his voice was plainly audible. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

There were more questions which were left unspoken yet he still heard loud and clear and couldn’t help but wonder himself. ‘What were you thinking?’ first among them.

“I’m not…I’m just…I’m scared, Mika.” Eren’s voice wavered and broke. He was shaking violently and it wasn’t from the cold. He was terrified. Needed to be rescued. Would almost certainly be killed, and soon. But he couldn’t plead for help. Not when he knew it would only lead to his sister being captured too. “I’ve screwed up. Already almost blown my cover.” Almost? He’d blown himself out of the water during the first few hours. But he couldn’t tell her that. “I shouldn’t have taken the cover I did. I know getting close to him was an important aspect of killing the bastard but…dear God!”

“Eren!” Her voice was strained. He could imagine Mikasa’s grip being white knuckled around the phone in her hand. “What’s happened? That bastard hasn’t…whose phone are you using?”

“Rivaille’s.” He admitted. It came out as a croak.

“ _What?”_

Eren had to pull the phone away from his ear, wincing. “I lost mine, along with most of my supplies, the night I nearly…but that’s not important.” He said. “He wants me to let him…I don’t think I can do this, Mika. If I get the chance to come home I will.”

“If you get the chance? _What do you mean if you get the chance?_ ”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it out of Sina.” That was a lie. Eren knew he wouldn’t. But there was no way he’d be responsible for luring anyone else to their deaths at the raven’s hands. “So I wanted to call you. In case…I don’t. I’m sorry. About not telling you before I left.” He hiccupped. “I love you. You’re my sister and you always will be.”

“Eren, I…” he could hear her pull herself up short. “I love you too, brother.”

What he wouldn’t have given to be able to escape through the phone. To be back at the barracks in Rose city with his sister and his friends. But that was nothing but a fantasy and Eren knew it. “I need to go.” Those footsteps were back on the stairs. “He only agreed to lend me his phone for a little while.”

After biding his sister farewell, he ended the call and quickly scrubbed the tears from his face. There wasn’t much he could do about the redness around his eyes but that was fine. He’d deal with it. The Vampire could think whatever he wanted about him.

“Remember our deal.” Rivaille said, taking back the phone. There was a book under his arm and for a second Eren thought he was going to tell him a story like Petra had but then he walked out of the cell and closed the door behind him. “I’ll speak with you again tomorrow evening.”

He was gone in moments. Eren rose from his bed and went to the lantern, turning down the light. Hiding the evidence of his breakdown even from himself.

 

* * *

 

 

It bothered him more than Rivaille ever wanted to admit, seeing Eren’s eyes puffy and rimmed red. Admittedly he hadn’t gone far after leaving him with his phone. Had stood at the top of the stairs and listened. Heard him cry.

He wasn’t a stranger to tears. Had heard cries of pain. Cries of despair. Cries of frustration. Cries of loss. None of them had ever left him with quite the same uncomfortable sensation.

 _Dangerous_. That was the perfect word to describe everything. The Hunter. The situation. What he was thinking of doing. Everything that he knew he shouldn’t be feeling. _Asking for trouble._ Was a good phrase. _Playing with fire_ perhaps the most apt.

In more ways than one.

With his coat in place and a scarf wrapped around his neck for good measure-damn the sudden swing the weather had taken towards arctic-Rivaille went in search of Gunther. He found him in the den with Oluo and Eld, playing cards. Pinochle, by the look of it.

All three of them looked up when he entered.

“I need to return this book to Dot.” He said. “I’d drive there myself, but I’d rather have an excuse to not get trapped into drinking with him for hours.”

“Understandable.” Eld looked up from his hand of cards. “Old man Pixis takes any chance he has to drink. Wanting to avoid getting caught up in that is smart.”

“I’ll jump back in if you’re still playing when we get back.” Gunther pulled his own jacket on from where it hung over the back of his chair. “Any other stops you’d like to make while we’re out, Rivaille?”

“That won’t be necessary.” He followed the taller Pureblood out of the room and down the hall towards the garage. “Though it’s a high likelihood I’ll be driving into Rose tomorrow night, that’s a drive I’ll make myself!”

“Things not going well with Eren?” he asked.

No. Not well at all. “He’s stubborn and paranoid. But forcing a dog into a corner only makes it bite. It may be better to cut him loose.”

“But you don’t want to.”

Why was everyone here so Goddamned observant? “It’s a shit show, Schultz.” The back door of the car banged shut behind him. “No other way to describe it.” Petra he expected, but the other three? Rivaille had begun to be possessed of the sneaking suspicion that his coven might be more aware of the true nature of his fascination with the Hunter in his basement than he’d have preferred.

 

 

* * *

 

As expected, having Gunther accompany him for use of the ‘my driver is outside’ excuse had been the intelligent choice. Even so Rivaille hadn’t entirely been able to escape the matter, and had eventually relented to having a shallow absinthe on the rocks with the older man. The headache he’d been left with had nothing to do with the drink and everything to do with the stupid questions he’d been asked.

He’d slept for most of the following day and then spent another few hours reading-and silently cursing the forecast of an early snow for that night-until after darkness had fallen and dinner had been had.

Five minutes before going down into the cellar, Petra had informed him that Eren hadn’t eaten. Considering what he’d overheard of the phone call that the brunet had placed to his sister the night before Rivaille wasn’t entirely surprised. The brat probably thought he was about to die. Not having an appetite under such circumstances was fairly understandable.

The look on his face when he realized the raven had no interest in killing him might once have been worth it, but now Rivaille had trouble finding any humor in the situation.

The brunet didn’t look at him when he heard him coming down. Eren was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched forward with his hands in his lap. Face shadowed by the low burning flame of the conductor’s lantern.

“You haven’t changed your decision, have you brat?” he knew the answer already. He hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t.

A pair of flaming emeralds rose to meet him; behind the viridian infernos was a certain dark resignation. The sort of thing he’d expect to see in a man on the gallows with a noose around his neck. The brunet didn’t speak, but the expression on his face was answer enough.

Rivaille sighed, massaged his temples, opened the door of the cell and stepped aside. Eren remained frozen for a long moment, then rose as stiffly as a tin man with rusted joints. When he walked out of the cell, headed towards the stairs, it was with the dragging feet of a death march.

Turning off the lantern, the raven followed him up.


	6. His Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this one is Digital Daggers "Just Beneath the Flames"

When Eren made it to the top of the stairs he was forced to blink multiple times in quick succession; the lights in the manor were much brighter than the conductor’s lantern which had been the only source of illumination he’d seen in quite a while. The air was warm and clean, tinted with the smells of lemon oil and cleaning supplies and the food which had been had for dinner.

His stomach clenched uncomfortably inside of him, all but turning inside out at the mere thought of food. The possibility of death was a shadow that hung over every Hunter since the moment they set foot outside of the Academy. It was something that the brunet had never been uncomfortable with. Of course, when he’d envisioned his death it had always been in the heat of battle. Or at the very least from a wound received during a fight.

Not after he’d been captured and executed by monsters as if he were some sort of common criminal. His body never found by those who’d care enough to bury him, just left to rot in the forest or on the side of a road somewhere. What little remained of his family never to know exactly what had happened to him.

Feeling his eyes beginning to grow hot and itchy, Eren clenched his fists at his sides. His nails breaking the skin of his palms, the pain of the red crescent wounds successfully drawing his attention away from the niggling urge to cry. He refused to cry again. To give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him break down and plead for mercy that wouldn’t come.

There was nothing he could do to stop the Vampire from killing him, but he wouldn’t allow himself to show the weakness he was sure the monster wanted.

Eren nearly hit his head on the ceiling when the raven’s hand applied light pressure to his back. A spike of adrenaline had him across the hallway so quickly that he slammed into the wall with a resonant thud.

Rivaille raised an eyebrow at him, pencil thin and black, as he closed the door of the basement. In contrast with the stone bricks and wet steps of the cellar behind it, the door was painted a warm cream color which blended well with the beige wall around it.

“You sure know how to fill a doorway, Eren.” The annoyance in his voice was vague, but gunmetal eyes glared daggers at his legs. The Hunter got the distinct impression that their height difference, however slight it admittedly was, was the source of the Vampire’s irritation. “I had to move you somehow.”

A light touch, this time. Next time, enough to break his spine. Or dig his fingers into his back and rip it out of him completely. How did the raven intend to kill him? A gun? A blade? He wasn’t armed but that didn’t mean much. Could have a weapon elsewhere, and could be intending to take him to that place. If not, then his claws. Or his strength. It didn’t matter either way, considering he’d be equally dead.

The only two variables that would change would be how much pain he’d be in before he died and how quickly he found his end. He’d hope and pray that it was relatively quick and relatively painless but considering whom his self-appointed executioner was Eren doubted it’d be either.

“Come on.” Seemingly having had enough of their tense staring game, Rivaille turned away from him and started down the hall. Eren was led around a number of corners and deposited in an ornate foyer. “Wait here.”

The raven disappeared through another doorway before the brunet could respond, not that he had much of anything to say to him regardless. Where had he gone? What was he getting?

“I really hope you weren’t expecting to walk out the front door wearing nothing but sweat pants and a t-shirt.” Petra was on the stairs, a long coat over one arm and a pair of what looked like workbooks dangling by their laces in her hands. “You’ll catch cold out there for sure.”

“It’s only October.” He looked down at his bare feet and poked at the wooden floor boards with his toes.

“That may be true but the weather doesn’t seem to care.” She’d reached the bottom of the stairs now and indicated the window not far from where they stood. “Have you looked outside?”

No, he hadn’t. Eren turned his head and peered through the pristine glass, eyes going wide at the sight of the massive white flakes drifting down from the dark sky.

“Snow?” he almost couldn’t believe it. “Why’s it snowing? It’s too early in the year.”

“Because the weather’s been fucked up for a while now, brat.” Rivaille had returned, a pair of car keys dangling from his hands. The symbol on the fob was, if he wasn’t mistaken, the Porsche shield. “I’d advise you to put that coat and those shoes on because I’m not driving you any further than the outskirts of Rose City. You’re going to have to walk back to your barracks on your own, and without those boots you’ll probably have a few less toes by the time you get home. Frostbite isn’t pleasant.” The gust of wind which howled in through the front door when the raven opened it was beyond arctic. Eren was of half a mind to make certain that there weren’t icicles hanging from his hair as Rivaille, wrapped up in a coat and scarf, stepped out onto the porch. “I’ll be in the car.”

 _To hell with attempting to brave that weather in short sleeves._ Petra seemed at least partially capable of reading his mind and held out both the coat and the boots towards him. “Socks are in the right boot.”

“Thanks.” He pulled the coat on-a bit too big but better than nothing-and then crouched to undo the ties and pull both the socks and the boots onto his feet. Supposedly he was being taken back to Rose City and would be released.

Eren didn’t believe that for a moment but he didn’t have any excuses left to him with which to stall. Steeling himself, the brunet stepped through the front door and out onto the porch.

The air smelled like ice, filling his lungs with spindles of cold when he breathed. Snow settled in his hair and on his shoulders. Rivaille’s footprints formed a trail in the inch-thick layer of white which had already gathered on the ground.

He could attempt to run but knew he wouldn’t make it far. Even if he could somehow slip away from Rivaille and his coven Sina City-being the capital of the Military Police-had the highest concentration of Vampires in the country if not in the world and he didn’t doubt it was well known among the bloodsuckers by now that he was a Hunter. The only chance he really had was to get in the car with Rivaille in the hopes that the Vampires really did intend to let him go.

Exhaling a puff of silver steam and jamming his hands into the pockets of the coat that he was wearing, he started down the path. Moving at a slow, cautious pace to ensure he didn’t accidentally slip on a patch of ice and break something else or make his wrist worse.

The black Porsche idled on the serpentine drive, engine purring with the sound of a massive predatory cat. He’d never really been much of one for cars, hadn’t bothered making an effort at learning to drive, but had Bertold been there he’d probably have known the make and model on sight. The taller, rather nervous boy had a fascination with cars-with technology in general-which Eren would be the first to admit he’d never understand.

The leather interior was pristine, well-kept and clean, and though it looked to have been in Rivaille’s possession for a number of years the fabled ‘new car smell’ was somehow still present beneath the scents of tea and snow and night. The heating system was on full blast, much to Eren’s relief, and the raven’s phone was held in the clutches of some manner of plastic device meant for use in ‘no hands phone operation’ while driving. Its screen, dimmed down to the lowest brightness setting so as not to be blinding in the dark, displaying a GPS app with the directions unmistakably set to Rose City.

“Seat belt.” Rivaille grunted in lee of greeting, pulling the gearshift into the ‘reverse’ position. Once Eren had complied, the click of the belt lock engaging a dead giveaway over the harsh hissing of the vents, the raven passed an iPod attached to an aux chord to him. Or, more rather, dropped it unceremoniously into his lap. “Amuse yourself with that; don’t touch anything on the dash but the volume control. It should be about a two hour drive.”

Eren wasn’t exactly in the mood for music and doubted that he’d recognize anything on the device even if he were to look through it but not wanting to just be stuck with the hissing vents, purring engine and silence the brunet just hit the ‘shuffle’ button and curled up in his seat. Staring out the window and watching the falling snowflakes rush by at high speeds as they left Sina City and turned off onto the highway.

Two hours. Two hours and then he’d be home. Or at least almost home. He was more than capable of finding his own way back to the barracks from the outskirts of Rose. Could understand why the raven wouldn’t want to drive him there. He didn’t want the raven driving him to the barracks either.

‘Why did the Vampire you were supposed to kill just drive you home’ was not a question which would be comfortable or easy to have to answer.

As soon as he got back he’d lobby that the entirety of the 104th be sent in together. He’d lead them back to the manor and, together, they’d dismantle Rivaille’s coven and put the fanged bastard down once and for all!

The hum of the engine dropped into lower tones as the Porsche slowed to a stop in the middle of an otherwise abandoned road. Ahead, through the frosted glass of the windshield, Eren could see the familiar lights of the city. The gear shift clunked into ‘park’ and the raven sat back against the leather seat.

“Well brat,” his eyes fluoresced pale in the dark, “end of the line. You walk from here.”

Eren’s fingers curled around the handle of the door but he made no move to pull it. “What about you?”

Why was he asking? Why did he care? He’d like to think he didn’t, but Eren had realized a long time ago that he was dogshit at lying to himself.

“What about me?” the words dropped between them, heavy and confused, as if cast from lead.

“You’re letting me go.” He elaborated, head cocked to the left, as if those four simple words somehow explained everything.

Again, that thin eyebrow arched. Even though Eren couldn’t clearly see it in the dark, limited as he was by the constraints of human vision, he knew that it was happening. “And?”

“And what about your uncle? If it’s really true that Kenny ordered the murder of your father then what’s to stop him from ordering your murder too?”

Rivaille just blinked calmly, as if the concept of potentially being killed didn’t faze him in the least. “Nothing.” He said. “But I’ll come up with some way to spin it enough to prevent him from realizing that you were voluntarily released rather than that you escaped.”

“Why?” Maybe that was at the core of his sudden uncertainty. His sudden desperate want to know. “Why are you letting me go? Why did you try and make a deal with me? Why didn’t you just kill me? This is war; releasing your enemy is wrong!”

“’Right and wrong’ isn’t a guarantee you’ll be able to sleep at night.” The Vampire turned his head to look out at the forest beyond the opposite window. “Look at me. I’ve been doing what was ‘right’ in the eyes of the Military Police for the vast majority of my life, ever since I lost my family. Do I look like a man who can look at himself in a mirror and say he’s proud of what he’s done?”

No. No, he didn’t. That haunted ghost which Eren had seen in the shorter male’s eyes on more than one occasion was enough to tell him everything that he needed to know. “If not by right and wrong how am I supposed to choose anything?”

“By what’s most moral in your own eyes.”

His hands collided with the ceiling of the car with a thump when Eren threw his arms up exasperation. “How is moral and not moral different from right and wrong?”

“Because moral and not moral in the eyes of society is different than moral and not moral in the eyes of the individual.” Rivaille said. “Take this advice, because from this point onwards I know I will be. When you’re making a decision, consider this question before anything else: which option is the choice you’ll least regret?”

“And, for you, that’s letting me go?”

The raven nodded. “Seems so.” He said. “I’ve made my choice. Make yours.” A tilt of the Vampire’s chin drew Eren’s attention back to where his own hand still rested on the handle of the door.

When he applied the slightest pressure to the handle the passenger side door of the Porsche popped open. The brunet swung his long legs out of the low slung car, slid off the leather seat and pulled himself upright. Then stood in the doorway.

The cold wind bit the apples of his cheeks bright red in just moments, a fresh coating of thick wet snowflakes landing on his head and shoulders with almost inaudible kissing sounds. The trees, half naked with the rapid approach of winter, hissed in the wind. Just over a mile away, the lights of the city sparkled.

 _What am I doing?_ Rivaille seemed to be wondering much the same thing, judging by the vaguely hunched forward position he’d adopted in an effort to keep him in sight without leaving the warmth of the car.

He couldn’t go back to the barracks like this. A failure. His pride wouldn’t allow it. And what if…what if there was some truth to what that letter he’d been shown had implied. He’d be remiss not to at least look into it. Pursue it. Investigate a little bit, and maybe even topple down the rabbit hole after solid proof had been found.

‘Sacrifice of yourself in the furtherance of Humanity’s freedom’ was one of the oath’s he’d sworn. And if Rivaille was willing to release him now he should be willing to allow him to withdraw himself from their ‘arrangement’ at some point in the future. If he stayed behind and took up the position as the raven’s supplicant Eren knew he would regret it, but he also knew he’d regret it far more if he simply walked away.

Taking a last, long moment to look out over the familiar lights of the city which had become his second home Eren dropped back into the heated seat and closed the door behind him.

“You can turn around at the Aldi’s that’s about half a mile ahead of us. Then turn on Magnolia street. It’s about five miles west of here.”

“Where are we headed?” the Vampire kept his eyes on the road as he shifted gears and started forwards. He wanted to know what had changed the Hunter’s mind so suddenly but kept the questions to himself. Eren would have to admit that he was grateful for that.

“The Academy.” He resumed his earlier activity of staring out the window. “You said that you were looking into the possible connections between the Military Police and the Hunter Sect but that you’d ‘hit a wall’ and were missing a piece of information. That you couldn’t find it. I think I know what that information might be and the Rose City Academy-any Hunter Academy, but that’s the closest one and the one I can get into, what with being an Alumni-is where you’ll find it.”

“And that would be?”

“Our records.” Eren traced odd patterns into the split on his wrist. “Shadis had your picture; he showed it to me before I was sent out so I’d know who to go after. I don’t know how many of the superiors know what you look like.”

“I’ll wait in the car.” Rivaille replied, making a round around the well-lit parking lot of the mentioned Aldi’s before the Porsche slithered once more into the dark.

Their drive down the only vaguely lit, well forested roads was made in silence. Snowflakes exploded on the windshield as they drove. A part of Eren was incredibly uncomfortable with the thought of bringing a highly dangerous Vampire within 100 yards of an academy filled with untrained students but it couldn’t be helped.

They needed that book as the final piece of the puzzle, at least so far as determining if Rivaille was telling the truth went.

“Park on the road.” Eren said. The raven did as he was told without complaint; the Hunter barely waited long enough for the car to stop rolling before jumping out and starting across the lot. The sight of the Academy was familiar, and near as welcome a sight as the barracks would have been. Warm lights fashioned in the shape of bracketed lanterns stood astride the heavy double doors, the interior of the cavernous entry smelling of blade oil and cedar wood.

He didn’t give himself the time to enjoy it, to slip comfortably into nostalgic memories of ambition and hard training and safety and friends, and hurried up the stairs. Even after nearly four years and not having spent much time there having much preferred to spend what little free time they’d had furthering his training, either to simply drag himself one step closer to his goal of eradicating the Vampires or in an effort to outdo Jean or Reiner, he still knew the way to the library.

The librarian, a rather bird-like old woman Eren only vaguely remembered, looked up at the sound of his entry before nodding at him and returning to her work. If memory served, it was after curfew. Not that that was any guarantee he’d make it out of the Academy without running into Asher; though he’d certainly become much less of a ‘problem child’ since having been under the brunet’s tutelage, he was still far from ‘by the book’.

At a flicker of movement from his peripheral vision the brunet sighed. _Think not of the Devil’s horns…_ he thought. “You should be in bed.”

He’d gotten taller than Eren last remembered now that he was 12 and nearing graduation. He wasn’t certain when, exactly, Asher had gotten snake bites either. “What brings you here, brother? I’d heard that you were on a job.”

“I am on a job.” He said. “That doesn’t change the fact it’s passed curfew.”

“I’ve gotten away with worse.” Asher’s grin grew wider. “You’re out for an Ackerman, so the grapevine claims.”

“The grapevine is correct.” Where had that saying even come from in the first place? Had there been some idiot in the ancient world who’d decided to stick a grapevine into their ear in pursuit of the secrets of the universe?

It wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing a human had ever done.

Finally locating the book that he was looking for Eren moved to pull it down but then realized he’d be unable to lift it with his injured wrist. Grimacing, Eren looked from the book to the younger boy and sighed.

“I need this book but my wrist is still healing from an…unfortunate break.” More like a pissed off asshole Vampire but he couldn’t insinuate he’d been caught and let go out in the open where the wrong person could hear. “Since you’re in the process of running rampant anyway why don’t you help me take this out to the car?”

“Sure.” He pulled down the book and propped it under his arm. “Whose car?”

“My partner’s.” Eren started back towards the library doors at a trot, wanting to get away from Asher and his questions as quickly as possible before he asked something that-.

“Who’s your partner?”

 _Shit_! He had to think of a name for the Vampire that couldn’t be connected to Rivaille but was similar enough that Eren wouldn’t mess it up if he had to use it later. “Levi.”

Amber eyes narrowed as the younger male thought it over, raking his memory for any connections to that name that might exist. “Never heard that name before.” He said. “Is he a Hunter?”

“…Not exactly.” Not at all.

Asher seemed somewhat taken by surprise at the sight of the Porsche, but didn’t say anything. Unfortunately for Eren, though the raven had parked the car where he’d asked him to he hadn’t stayed inside of it. The Vampire watched them approach with a vaguely intrigued dispassion, the cherry of his cigarette glowing vibrant red in the dark as he perched on the roof.

“You smoke, Levi?” he said it just to say something. Eren wasn’t certain who he was more concerned about speaking first: Asher or Rivaille.

The smaller male raised that godforsaken eyebrow _yet again_ but didn’t question the sudden change of names. Pulling the cigarette from pale lips, he exhaled a cloud of smoke. “I try not to, but old habits die hard.” He said. “Who’s the kid?”

“I’m his brother.” Asher said, posture an obvious challenge. “And I’m _not_ a kid.”

Rivaille grunted and looked to Eren. “You have a brother too?”

“Not legally.” He admitted.

“Do you just take in strays? I don’t have to worry about waking up to find my manor filled with feral cats do I?”

“I’m a dog person.” Eren grumbled.

“Drooling mutts.” Rivaille dropped the cigarette then jumped down from the roof, grinding the butt to dust beneath his heel. “Marvelous.”

“What are you, a fish person? A bird person?”

“Not much of an animal person at all.” He started around the front of the car, back towards the driver’s side door. “The only pet I’ve ever had is you, Jaeger.”

“ ** _Hey!”_**

The only reply that Eren received was the thump of the closing door.

“Where’d you find him?” Asher asked, evidentially annoyed as he put the book in the back seat. “Seems like a real piece of work.”

“You’ve no idea.” He said. “It was nice seeing you, Asher. Please go to bed before midnight.”

“I will.” He grumbled. “Be careful back in Sina. I don’t want to hear that you died like all of the others.”

Despite himself the brunet smiled and ruffled his hair, chuckling when the younger boy grunted and made an attempt to move away. “I’ll be fine.” He hoped that time would prove him right. “Good night.”

“Goodnight, Eren.”

After making sure that the younger Hunter had turned and started back towards the Academy he climbed back into the car.

“Levi?” was the first thing out of the raven’s mouth.

“I had to think of something when he asked what your name was.” He said. “Levi is less of a mouthful than Rivaille anyway. I think I’ll just start calling you that.”

“Go ahead. Just don’t do it while anyone who can’t be trusted is around.”

“What Vampire can be trusted?”

“My coven, as well as those of my longtime friends Farlan Church and Isabelle Magnolia.” Eren knew Rivaille had caught the full context of his jab, but it annoyed him that the Vampire allowed the matter to slide off his back like water. “Who was the brat? And I’d like a bit more context this time than just ‘my brother’.”

“He’s an orphan, like me, but not because his parents died. They abandoned him on the street and the Academy took him in but he was…wild.” He told him. “Within four months he was almost thrown out. Because of all the anger that he had. So they brought in someone who had had the same problem but made it through because he has a sister ready and able to kick his ass when need be to keep him in line.”

“You.”

“Yeah.” Eren said. “He wasn’t pleased with me at first but I got through to him and by the end of the program we’d become close.”

The quiet returned after that and an hour passed in such a fashion before Eren spoke again. “I have conditions.”

On the open road and with the car all but driving itself Rivaille looked over at him. “Conditions?”

“For our arrangement. For me becoming your…your supplicant. For letting you…” unable to bring himself to even voice the prospect, Eren gestured at his neck instead.

“And what would those be, brat?”

Obviously, that was permission for him to speak his mind. Not that it would have stopped him if it hadn’t been given.

“I’m allowed to reverse my decision at any time.”

“Add in a clause that you have to have a better reason than ‘because I’m scared’ and we can do business.” He said. “Anything else?”

“I get a weapon. One I’m allowed to have on me at all times and that would work against a Vampire.”

“Give me your measurements.” Rivaille told him. “I’ll have something custom made for you. Silver, right?”

“Yes. Silver.”

“Dagger, sword or gun?”

He’d never been partial to guns. Too easy to wear out or break a flintlock weapon or run out of bullets. And, even with a silencer, too loud. And a dagger was too small to really make him feel safe, even if it would have been easier to maneuver with it. “Sword.”

“It shouldn’t take more than a few days.” The raven promised. “I’ll have the matter rushed.”

Silence fell again and persisted for most of the rest of the drive. When they’d gotten back into Sina and were pulling into the driveway of the manor Eren finally spoke up again, rubbing his neck. Already wincing at the phantom pain of fangs breaking his skin.

“S-So…how are we…are we just going to…when we get inside will you bite me?” he hated how his voice pitched up at the end.

“No.” The engine grumbled to a halt when Rivaille pulled out the keys, plunging the car into darkness. The sudden quiet was almost hair-raising. “I’ve gone fifty years drinking nothing but bagged blood. I can go a while longer. We’ll start once you’ve had time to become comfortable with the idea.”

Comfortable with the idea? He’d never be comfortable with the idea, but Eren wasn’t about to correct him on the matter. He snuggled down deeper into the warmth of the coat that he was wrapped in as the raven popped open the driver’s side door.

“Come on, brat.” He stepped out into the snow. “I’ll show you to the guest bedroom.”


	7. Back at the Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this one is Shine Down - Call Me

The snow had only fallen thicker while they’d been in Rose City, and now lay across the manor’s slopping lawn in a foot deep quilt of glittering white. At least the rate of the flakes raining down upon their heads had slowed. After the thuds of the car doors slamming shut behind them had faded into the cloudy dark, the cold and silence pressed in around his ears like a muffling blanket. Eren shifted his weight, purely for the sake of relieving that oppressive silence with the crunching of snow.

His breath rose in silver curls as he shuffled his feet, digging his hands a bit deeper into the pockets of the coat that he wore in search of a bit more warmth.

The shorter raven brushed passed him, the house keys already in hand. Eren followed at what he judged to be a safe distance, unable to entirely stop himself from looking the smaller male up and down. He looked even more beautiful in the open darkness of the night than he had in the jaundiced gloom of the dungeon or the wan scarlet glow permeating the Devil’s Thorn. What little moonlight managed to filter down through the thick cloud cover which choked the sky above them lit his eyes with silver fire and cast shades of blue against his alabaster skin.

‘The Vampire’s allure’ was something they’d been warned against while in the Academy, but Eren had never believed in it. Had found the concept of some sort of ‘pull’, some sort of ‘magic aura’, that only certain people could feel and drew them towards particular Vampires to be ridiculous. But now that he really thought back on those long ago lessons he’d only barely paid attention to, really examined what their teachers had said, Eren realized that a ‘magic aura’ hadn’t been an accurate way to think about the allure at all.

It was simply the rare instance where a Hunter found themselves in the dangerous waters of the intersection between their ‘type’ and the draw of something dangerous and forbidden. Even more so in his case, what with the fact that his Vampire-oh, shit! He’d better shut that thought process down immediately! When the hell did this ‘his Vampire’ nonsense start?-wasn’t just a Vampire but also another man.

His attention was only vaguely focused on his immediate surroundings as he stepped up onto the porch. Eren stamped his feet before he could be ordered to, knocking free the half-frozen slush which had collected along the sides of the work boots. The house keys jingled in the lock as Rivaille shoved them in and turned them.

“We’ll discuss certain important matters later today,” he said as he stepped through the door, holding it open for the brunet to pass through behind him. That was right, it was passed midnight already. “Shoes off on the rug.” Robotically, Eren followed the Vampire’s orders. “Coat in the closet.” He found the first empty hanger that he could get his hands on and hung the loaned coat on it. “You can explore the house later, brat. The guest bedroom is on the third floor.”

Rivaille led the way up the Victorian, spiral staircase at a brusque pace. The shining white marble stairs were cold even through the socks that he had on. After hiking up three flights and passing a handful of gabled windows which, by day, would doubtlessly have shown off an impressive view of the manor house’s grounds, Eren was led down a long carpeted hallway to a closed door.

A pair of cherry wood nightstands flanked the massive bed, both matching the handsome wardrobe which stood against the opposite wall. The room was patterned in shades of pale green and gold, like a forest in summer. Beyond doubt, it was the most luxurious place he’d ever had the privilege of staying in.

Typical. When you were immortal, money meant about as much as a handful of pebbles gathered from the side of the road. And being an Ackerman Rivaille probably had a glut if fuds squirreled away in some bank somewhere.

The raven had opened another door and flipped on the light switch beyond, revealing the bathroom on the other side. “Bathrooms here.” He said, heading back towards the hallway. “I’d advise you to make good use of the shower. You’d didn’t exactly come away from your stay in my cellar smelling like a rose.”

“And whose fault was that?” he hissed back, not that the Vampire responded. He wasn’t even certain the bastard had heard, with how quickly he’d disappeared. Grumbling under his breath and pulling the undersized shirt over his head as he went, the brunet headed towards the open door.

Tempting as it was to refuse to do so just to spite him, the lure of a hot shower-especially with the weather being the way that it was-was too strong for Eren to ignore.

The interior of the bathroom was all champagne granite and chrome and just as luxurious as the bedroom it was attached to. A pane of glass stood in place of a shower curtain, and behind it was both a place to stand and take a shower and what was, if Eren wasn’t mistaken, a Jacuzzi tub.

At least he wouldn’t be hurting for creature comforts during his stint there, by the look of things. Not that it would change anything in the end.

Regardless of whether Rivaille was truthful about the Rose’s duplicity or not he was still a Vampire. The enemy. One of the monsters that had taken his family and he’d in turn sworn to destroy. Even if he’d begun to regret what he’d done, at least on some level-was his kind capable of regret? He’d certainly talked like he was-the raven was still the enemy. This was only a temporary arrangement, and as soon as this fiasco was resolved-be it days or years from now and regardless of whether it cost him his standing in the Hunter Sect-they’d return to trying to kill each other. Or, at least, Eren would. And thereby, he couldn’t allow himself to become too trusting.

Or too attached.

Meeting the green eyes of his reflection, the brunet sighed. Familiar scars dotted his tan skin and his brown hair looked even more wild than usual, damp with melted snow and offputtingly oily from all the time he’d spent without access to a method of cleaning himself up.

He freed himself from the last of his clothing and pushed aside the glass pane. Stepping inside. The tiny tiles which paved the floor were smooth and dry beneath his feet. Eren flexed his toes. Rivaille didn’t have visitors over very often, it seemed. Which wasn’t surprising. He didn’t seem the type to much appreciate company.

 _He’s probably lonely._ Announced the voice which lived in the back of his head, entirely oblivious to the fact that its oh so clever observation flew directly in the face of the ‘not getting attached’ aspect of his intentions. Eren wanted to strangle it, but settled for strangling the shower lever in front of him instead. Cursing when he doused himself in scalding water by mistake.

After adjusting the temperature so that the water was no longer hot enough to boil him like an egg the Hunter stepped back under the spray and closed his eyes. All of his muscles immediately relaxing under the deluge.

God, it felt so incredibly amazing to finally be truly warm again and out of the damp darkness of that depressing basement. Pausing only long enough to read the labels on the bottles of what he was using to make sure he didn’t mistakenly pour body wash on his head Eren washed his hair and skin and then stood under the spigot until the water finally ran cold.

Warm and clean at last and with exhaustion beginning to seep  into his bones, Eren dried himself off with the towel waiting for him-fluffy and piping hit, as if freshly removed from the dryer-and then wrapped it around his waist and went in search of what he’d been wearing.

They were gone, replaced with a fresh set of similar clothing. Sitting on one of the nightstands, beneath the lamp which Eren had been certain wasn’t on when he’d gone into the bathroom, was a note a cellphone and a still steaming mug. After pulling them on he crossed to the nightstand to investigate the items.

Inside of the mug was what looked and smelled like hot chocolate. Beside it, a new iPhone in a box; seriously? Did this guy just have the things lying around?

“Too much money.” Annoyed, he picked up the note. Short and blunt, rather like its author, the contents were as follows:

‘The phone is yours. Don’t spend all night using it.’

Crumpling up the paper into the smallest ball he possibly could, Eren flung it across the room. It bounced off of the wall and fell into the carpet with a muted thump. Hissing under his breath, he ripped open the box and pulled out the phone. After running through the set up process and making a point of setting the language to German-it was juvenile, but if the raven was going to set his phone so that he couldn’t look through it than Eren was more than pleased to return the favor-he logged all the numbers he could remember into his contents and then sent a brief text to Mikasa just for the sake of letting her know that he was safe.

Hopefully that would at least dampen the worry he knew that she was going through over his position.

‘I’m fine.’ He typed out, then added the phrase ‘I’m staying’ before hitting the send button.

Aware that, at this time of night, she was either asleep or on the job Eren clicked off the screen and set the phone down on the nightstand. Eyeing up the cup of hot chocolate for a while before finally giving in and drinking it the brunet turned off the lamp and curled up beneath the covers.

The mattress was comfortable, sucking him downwards like quicksand. Or maybe it was just an illusion caused by the slow shut down of his awareness. Stretching, cat like, and hearing his joints pop the brunet plunged into a dreamless sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Get Eren’s measurements. Order the sword that he’d demanded. Use them to order some fitting clothes as well to tide him over until he could be seen around the city and taken to a boutique somewhere in Sina. Resume his efforts to form a workable time line which could be used as a back bone to his efforts to uncover the truth of what Kenny had been up to and plumb the depths of the Military Police’s darkest secrets. Determine, at the very least, the nuts and bolts of what should be done afterwards. Make certain no definitive proof of his rooting around in his uncle’s dirty laundry could be found. Keep enough of an eye on Eren to make sure the young Hunter didn’t get overly gun-shy, snap and make another effort to kill him or anybody else.

So much to do. So little time. And, God only knew, there was only so far he could stretch his attention without slipping up on something. And when things were as precarious as the situation Rivaille now found himself wrapped up in all it took was one mistake to land you up to your neck in a fucking volcano.

 _At least it’s finally stopped snowing._ He thought, stepping out once more onto the porch and heading down the walkway towards his car. Retrieving the massive book which the brunet had ‘borrowed’ from the Rose City Academy from the back of the Porsche he hurried back inside, depositing it in the library for later perusal and heading into the den.

He needed a nightcap.

The raven found Eld already there, wiping down the wet bar while holding a Manhattan in one hand.

“What are you still doing up?” he asked on catching sight of him.

“I should be asking you that, Jinn.” Deciding to forgo the bother of the sugar and cold water, Rivaille poured an admittedly generous portion of absinthe over ice. Because incredibly strong alcohol was precisely what he needed right now.

“Decided not to let Eren go after all?” finished with the bar, the blonde returned the cloth to its proper place and joined the shorter male in one of the stools.

“Eren decided not to fly the coop after all.” He grumbled around the rim of his cup. “Seemed to have a bit of an internal debate while he stood in the door before he got back in the car.”

“That’s a relief to hear.” The ice in Eld’s cup clattered against the glass.

“And why would that be?”

“Because it means you’ll soon be healthy again. After so long drinking bagged blood and nothing else, not acting like yourself, we’d all begun to worry about you.” He said. “Though I’ll admit to my surprise that a Hunter would agree to become a supplicant, especially after being given what all but amounted to a pamphlet on what it meant.”

“He didn’t just agree to it passively. As a matter of fact, I doubt there’s a single thing that brat has _ever_ done-be it sleeping or taking a shit or anything in between-passively.” Having drained the glass Rivaille rose from his stool to pour himself a little more. “He had a couple of conditions, one of which being a fair bit more concerning than the other.”

“And what would those be?”

“The ability to back out at any time, which is relatively understandable. Though not healthy for him unless he’d be willing to get into the habit of weekly bloodletting to prevent his heart from popping like an overfilled water balloon.” Skillful motion of his wrist sent both the ice and the bright green alcohol-green as Eren’s eyes; fucking hell, why was he _still_ dwelling on the Hunter?-spinning around the confines of the glass. “Double the normal blood volume is all well and good for the Vampire half of the supplicant pair, but not so great for the Human half when they’re not bleeding a considerable amount on a regular basis.”

“You should probably make him aware of that fact. In case he does decide to take advantage of his ‘escape route’.” Eld said. Rivaille grunted in reply. “What was his other condition? The one that you found concerning.”

“He wants a silver sword.”

The other Vampire almost choked on an ice cube. “You’re really going to hand the Hunter originally sent in to kill you who’s currently staying in your house a silver sword and just turn him loose?”

“I’m not ‘just turning him loose’, we’ll all be keeping an eye on him.” Rivaille said. “I’m not comfortable with it, I’ll be honest, but he’s not comfortable with letting me stick my fangs in his throat so we’re even in that regard.”

Eld didn’t have anything to say to that, as evidenced by the fact that all he did was take another drink.

“It’s probably irresponsible.” The raven stared down at the green tinted ice in his cup. “But that’s the price I’m willing to pay to be able to sleep at night, for the first time in…too many years. I’ll do the best I can to keep it from blowing up in my face and reflecting back on the four of you.”

Out of the corner of his eye the raven caught the other’s smile. “You know, Rivaille, we’d thought you’d have realized it a long time ago.”

“Realized what?”

“That we trust you.” Eld washed out his cup and put it away before heading out of the room. “Good night.”

After grumbling something almost unintelligible which was meant to be some reciprocation he got up again, cursing his tolerance grown over decades and centuries, and refilled his glass for a third and final time. Once he’d finished that off he cleaned up and returned to his room. Pausing at the door to peer back down at the opposite end of the hallway. At the closed, and likely now locked, door of which was now in his mind to be known as ‘Eren’s room’.

Was he still awake? Had he gotten the phone? Probably poured the drink he’d left him down the drain, expecting it to be poisoned or some other such nonsense.

 _Paranoid little brat._ He couldn’t really blame him. _I’ll deal with him in the morning…later today._

Was three in the morning too late or too early? Did it really matter either way? With any luck he’d actually be able to get some sleep tonight. Pushing open the door, Rivaille stepped over the threshold into his room.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After almost four years of being an active Hunter Eren had long since grown used to waking up at seven sharp in the morning, no matter how late he’d stayed up the night before. But after so long in the windowless dungeon below Rivaille’s manor his internal clock had cracked, and the incredibly soft mattress definitely hadn’t helped. When Eren opened his eyes, stretched and looked at the digital clock sitting on the nightstand he was confronted with the fact that it was already quarter to noon.

 Groaning loudly, stretching once again and rolling out of bed Eren went to take another shower just because he could. Once finished with that, the brunet threw on the clean clothes he’d received the night before. After a bit of hemming and hawing, he finally unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Empty. Thankfully. After looking up and down the hallway Eren began edging towards the stairs.

He hadn’t gotten to see much of the massive house the night before but from what he’d been able to gather the third floor contained mostly bedrooms. The Hunter had little desire to go poking around such areas until he had the weapon he’d been promised.

After that, well…better to avoid punching your allies of circumstance until they weren’t your allies of circumstance anymore. He had bigger, more immediate things to focus on. Like determining the layout of his surroundings, discerning whether the idea that there was corruption in the Rose held water, and finding something to eat.

Fairly basic needs.

Bright sunlight spilled in pools of warm gold across the wooden floor boards of the second floor. A set of double doors stood open, revealing a large private library. Rivaille sat inside, dressed as usual in fitted clothing and sitting in a leather arm chair, legs crossed and with a book in his hand. In front of him on the table, arranged on a silver tray, was an assortment of pastries and a pitcher of iced tea.

Raising arctic blue eyes from the pages of the book to look at him before glancing down at the watch on his wrist the Vampire said “I’d say ‘good morning’ but it’s already past noon.”

“I usually wake up earlier.” Eren watched him close the book and set it aside. The raven seemed even more tired than usual, but didn’t look any different otherwise. “Once my internal clock is back to rights I’ll be back on track.”

Rivaille’s response was to gesture to another chair. “We should talk.”

“I’ll talk if I can have those.” He pointed to the pastries.

The Vampire smirked. “Knock yourself out. I’ve already had my breakfast.” The Hunter held back a shudder, picking up a strawberry cream cheese Danish and dropping into another seat. “Watch the crumbs; I’ll make you clean up after yourself with tweezers.”

“Not a savage.” Eren grumbled around a mouthful of Danish. The look the raven sent him made it rather clear he disagreed. “Have you put everything together now? Developed a theory that will actually convince me that what that letter you showed me had to say was true?”

“I haven’t looked at the book you ‘borrowed’ from the Academy yet; thought you’d want to be there when I did to make sure I wasn’t somehow pulling the wool over your eyes, brat.” Aside from glaring pointedly at him, the brunet refused to give the Vampire any real reaction to the jab. Seeing this and appearing rather amused, Rivaille continued on with what he’d been saying. “We need to discuss what will be happening here, at least in the short term. You can get back to exploring when we’re done.”

So they’d be discussing his standing there, would they? Great.

Note the sarcasm.

“Supplicants aren’t on the books as illegal but that isn’t going to prevent us from being held under fire the moment we come out with our arrangement. Especially because you’re a Hunter.” He said. “We’ll have to make it seem like I’ve…convinced you to abandon the oaths and principles of the Rose. And though I’m known for breaking those sent after me, in one way or another, it won’t come off in any believable way in such a short frame of time.”

“And what does that mean for me?” Eren asked, crossing his arms. “I can’t leave the manor?” Rivaille nodded. “For how long?”

“A month, though even that’s pushing the envelope.” The raven said. “I can  start letting you be seen in public around Sina about mid-November. In the meantime, find some way to make yourself something close to comfortable. Our arrangement won’t be anything but more divisive if we’re both constantly circling each other with our claws out.”

“I may be young but I’m not stupid, Levi. Trusting you is the furthest thing from my interest in the long run.”

‘Brat’ he could imagine him thinking. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to meet me half way because we have to work together if we’re going to do anything about the Military Police and the Hunter Sect’s corruption. A united front in public is worthless if we’re at each other’s throats behind closed doors.”

“I’ll ‘meet you halfway’ when you’ve given me that sword I wanted.” The brunet said. “I may be a Hunter but being at top physical condition and trained in combat isn’t worth anything when I’m not armed. You can kill me far too easily for me to ever be comfortable around you. But the sword will put us on even ground.”

“I already agreed to your terms, Eren. I’m not going to renege on that promise now.” Rivaille produced a pen and paper seemingly from nowhere and passed them both across the table to the brunet. “Give me your measurements and I’ll put in the order for that blade of yours. Design preferences?”

“Anything affective at killing Vampires.”

The raven blinked. “One handed or two handed?”

Dual wielding the one handed blades which came with the gear they used was the most common weapon of Hunters, but due to his competitive nature and Jean and Reiner’s tendency to enflame it he’d gained an unusual range of weapons which he could use to great effect. “Either. I’m about equal in skill at both.”

“Hand and a half, then.” Best of both worlds, that was fine with him. Rivaille put down a number more notes on the page after it was passed back to him and sketched out a quick image, but it was hidden away in one of his pockets before Eren could get even a brief look at it. “I’ll use these measurements to get you some fitting clothes for you as well. Enough to keep you properly clothed until you can come out to a store.”

“That’s all, then?” Eren asked.

“On that matter.” Rivaille said, rising from his seat. “It’s time that you and I looked over that book.”


End file.
